New Clause 7
Charities Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Peter Bottomley (Worthing West, Conservative)
If I understand the new clause and the explanation that the hon. Gentleman has given—he has made a fair speech—I do not agree with his intent. If an organisation has been a charity and has been held to have a charitable purpose, because of this change of law—which frankly, I do not think is necessary; I prefer to assume that both education and religion are charitable, but that is not the situation that we are in—it is perfectly possible that an organisation that has operated as a charity with excepted charitable purposes for decades or even hundreds of years may find itself ruled not to be charitable.
One circumstance, which the new clause is aimed at, is for the trustees to accept it as a modern charity. The alternative is to say that is not why we exist, we want to go on doing what we have been doing for decades or centuries, even though we are now to be modernised and told we are not a charity. In those circumstances, it is not right that all their assets—their name, property and endowments—should be taken from them and given to something that is still excepted as a charity.