New Clause 7
Charities Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Peter Bottomley (Worthing West, Conservative)
That is one of the reasons whyI might do a disservice; I know that I have a communication problem. I need to go on and attempt to perfect what I am trying to say.
Let us suppose that donor Bottomley in the 1660s had said, “I want my money to establish an institution for purposes that are acceptably charitable in the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.” There is a tradition of what the purpose is and it is accepted. Yet because of this change of law—we are changing the law and potentially redrawing the boundaries of what is charitable—Bottomley’s donation should be allowed to continue for the purpose for which it is given. The fact that it is charitable is a secondary factor. I argue that, in those circumstances, it should be allowed for the present trustees to meet the purpose for which the trust was established. That is the problem. I contend that it contradicts what the hon. Member has put forward in his new clause. At some stage it would be useful to hear other people’s views on that.
If I can make my point more clearly, I do not want to get involved in the independent school issue. I do not want to try to imagine the circumstances in which the Chancellor might so take against an Oxford college, which is going to have some kind of regulation or is part of the exemption that we have dealt with already—so I should not go into that too far—that he wants to say, “I am going to try to get the Charity Commission to say that the charitable purpose is not sufficient”. If there were then a review, and it decided that the public benefit was not great enough, and so the college’s charitable status was lost, what would happen to it?
Would the college be told that all the fellows who are the society, who are the trustees, are going to be displaced and the Chancellor’s friends from some other university are going to be brought in? Or would there be an advertisement and a public appointments commission, with head-hunters being brought in, to decide, once a society had been created, who should be the research fellows and what tenure each of them should have—all because the charitable purpose has been redefined? It strikes me that the hon. Gentleman needs a bit of help on this.