New Clause 15
Charities Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Peter Bottomley (Worthing West, Conservative)
No.
The petitioners continued that they carefully considered what the Charities Bill team sent back, but that it reinforced their concerns. They were told that charity law provides remedies either in circumstances when the charity’s
“purposes cease to be charitable under English law”
or in circumstances when the charity
“carries out unacceptable activities (for example, activities that are unlawful...)”.
The whole point is that because charity law is, in the petitioners’ view, so unspecific and lacking in clarity and the existing statutory powers of intervention so limited, that prompts the question of what purposes are non-charitable and what charity activities are unacceptable or unlawful.
In the absence of clear statutory precepts, the reaction of the commission to the petitioners’ complaint and to similar complaints is bound to be as it was. There is no criticism of the commission in what has been said, but rather it has been questioned whether there is a gap in the law. It may be that charity law needs amending—and the petitioners would say that it certainly does—to make it explicit that an English charity, or for that matter any charity anywhere in the United Kingdom, may not engage in activities that contravene international human rights provisions and standards, and that the commission is mandated to intervene if it does so.
The proposal that was first discussed in correspondence has been changed and its most recent form is the new clause that I am offering to the Committee today. The particular wording does not matter, but the commission wishes to see—and there is an argument here that the Committee might wish to consider—an amendment that satisfied the principle behind the concerns. The underlying issue is whether non-state institutions have obligations under human rights treaties and if so, to what degree. The purpose of the new clause is to make it explicit that UK charities not only are expected to comply with international human rights standards, but can be required to do so.
There are other matters contained in a letter that could come up if we return to the issue later, but I have spelled out the issue and the responses from the Charities Bill unit, which was very open, and the Charity Commission. The underlying question is not whether the law is being applied or interpreted properly, but whether there is a gap in the law. The Committee might benefit from hearing the Minister’s response.