Clause 67
Charities Bill [Lords]
1:00 pm
Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr. Gale. Some of the statements that have just been made by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) contained so many red herrings that he could open a fish shop. Despite my background, I shall not take his pejorative statements personally, especially his comments on fundraising by the larger charities, which the Parliamentary Secretary described from a sedentary position as an outrageous slur. I have to concur.
The hon. Gentleman was wrong about many things. The ratio of expenditure to income is important and it is dealt with properly by most of the larger charities. According to the type of fundraising pursued, those ratios sometimes look worse and sometimes look better. The areas that benefit from a large volunteer input, which is, in effect, free naturally achieve a good ratio; that is often true of small charities, as the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out. However, some small charities indulge in special events fundraising of the type that is relatively inefficient, such as large gala dinners that make only a little more than they cost to put on. Such issues are a matter of detail and variation throughout the whole charities sector and his wild generalisations were pretty wide of the mark.
I do not have huge sympathy for the case putby the Association of Fundraising Consultants. The importance of the clauses designed to strengthen section 60 of the 1992 Act arises from the fact that weaknesses have been identified in the application of that provision. The hon. Gentleman was right to mention charity Christmas cards. The issue is not the costs that are taken by the charities, but those commercial participators—the organisations such as supermarkets and other retailers that help charities to fund raise, but are not themselves professional fundraisers—that represent themselves as raising charitable funds for a benevolent or philanthropic purpose but, in practice, do not ultimately give much money to the charity in question. That is a legitimate concern. In recent years, I have been worried about the fact that, although section 60 of the 1992 Act was well drafted and well intentioned, it has been pretty widely ignored. When walking down an average high street, one sees many examples of things that purport to be charitable or imply that they are for a charitable purpose that simply ignore section 60 of the 1992 Act. I therefore broadly welcome clauses 66, 67 and 68.
It is right that we seek to tighten protection for efficient, legitimate fundraising. The onus is on the Parliamentary Secretary to take on his responsibilities as Minister for the third sector. He should consider the enforcement and the practical application of the provisions and ensure that the Charity Commission and others concerned with enforcement find a mechanism to make it easy for people to report breaches. I suspect that many breaches are inadvertent and quite innocent. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight mentioned businesses such as Tesco and John Lewis, which contribute a great deal to charity. Perhaps I should declare an interest as the director of fundraising who managed to secure the designation of Tesco charity of the year for the Alzheimer’s Society. I worked closely with Tesco and I think that its record on corporate responsibility and support for charity is very good. If it has inadvertently breached the law, I am sure that it was not with the intent of deceiving the public.
Nevertheless, the fact the breaches occur fairly routinely clearly opens the door for less scrupulous individuals to make a healthy profit out of apparently charitable sales and activities that do not benefit charities very much. So broadly speaking, I welcome the clauses.