Clause 51
Charities Bill [Lords]
9:00 am
Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)
It depends on the consultant.
The risk is to the middling or smaller charities. Reports by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Charities Aid Foundation regularly identify the trend for increasing amounts of income in some sectors to go to the largest charities. There is a distinct squeeze on the middling and smaller organisations which affects their income and their ability to run things like national flag days or national collections. The amendments are designed to counter that squeeze a little and avoid the risk of our adding inadvertently to the pressure on those middling and smaller sized charities.
Amendment No. 148 is similar in intent to amendment No. 139 tabled by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). Her proposal would delete subsection (1)(e) from clause 53, which gives grounds to the commission to refuse a certificate if it
“appears to the Commission that the amount likely to be applied for charitable, benevolent or philanthropic purposes in consequence of the proposed collections would be inadequate”.
We want to delete from the subsection the words
“having regard to the likely amount of the proceeds of the collection”
and substitute them with
“having regard to all the circumstances”
from the following subsection that refers to remuneration. We tabled the amendment because there were several doubts about whether the Charity Commission could properly judge the likely proceeds of the collections.
The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland is braver than our amendment and would remove the provision entirely. On reflection, perhaps that is the simpler and more direct approach. It has a lot to commend it. I would be content if either amendment were accepted. If the hon. Lady wishes to press her amendment to a Division, I might withdraw my amendment.