Clause 43
Charities Bill [Lords]
Andrew Turner (Shadow Minister (Charities), Home Affairs; Isle of Wight, Conservative)
This is an interesting clause with which I profoundly disagree, and I may wish to vote against it on stand part; however, amendment No. 44 is designed to make it work better. That may sound curious, but as we are here to scrutinise the Bill, and as we want a good Bill to be produced at the end of it all, I do not think that there is any great problem with trying both to make the clause better and to get it out of the Bill altogether.
The amendment would remove the last three lines above new section 75A on page 46. The purpose of clause 43 is to enable charities to spend some or all of their endowments. New section 75(7) says that
“‘available endowment fund’, in relation to a charity, means—
(a) the whole of the charity’s permanent endowment if it is all subject to the same trusts, or
(b) any part of its permanent endowment which is subject to any particular trusts that are different from those to which any other part is subject”.
It goes on to make some exclusions, including
“so much of that endowment or part as consists of land held on trusts which stipulate that it is to be used for the purposes, or any particular purposes, of the charity.”
That land, I understand, is called in specie land. Land held on trust is different from money held on trust, because if it is excluded by virtue of subsection (7) it would not be available for expenditure. That would create a real problem for charitable organisations that are landowners, rather than holders of property in the form of money. If a school wants to build a new gymnasium, for example, it may wish to fund that by disposing of some of its land.