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Session 2005 - 06 Publications on the internet Standing Committee Debates Charities Bill [Lords] |
Charities Bill [Lords] |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Mrs E. Commander, Committee
Clerk † attended the
Committee Standing Committee ATuesday 4 July 2006(Morning)[Mrs. Joan Humble in the Chair]Charities Bill [Lords]10.30
am
The
Chairman: I remind the Committee that there is a money
resolution in connection with the Bill, copies of which are available
in the room. As a general rule, adequate notice should be given of
amendments. I and my fellow Chairman do not intend to call starred
amendments, including any that may be reached during an afternoon
sitting of the Committee. Given the weather forecast for today, hon.
Gentlemen may remove their jackets. I call the Minister to move the
programme
motion.
That— (1)
during proceedings on the Charities Bill [Lords] the Standing
Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on
Tuesday 4th July)
meet— (a) at
4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 4th
July; (b) at 9.00 a.m.
and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 6th
July; (c) at 10.30
a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 11th
July; (d) at 9.00 a.m.
and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 13th
July; (2) the
proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 6;
Schedules 1 and 2; Clauses 7 and 8; Schedules 3 and 4; Clauses 9 to 12;
Schedule 5; Clauses 13 to 30; Schedule 6; Clauses 31 to 34; Schedule 7;
Clauses 35 to 74; Schedules 8 to 10; Clauses 75 to 78; new Clauses; new
Schedules; remaining proceedings on the
Bill; (3) the
proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a
conclusion at 4.00 p.m. on Thursday 13th
July. It is a pleasure
to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs. Humble. The Committee has the
privilege of considering a Bill that will make a real difference to the
charities and people of this country. As I said on Second Reading, it
has been well researched, having been the subject of the strategy unit
report of 2002 and well examined by the Joint Committee. I welcome the
fact that the programme motion will allow 20 hours of debate in
Committee. The
Government will approach the Bill in a charitable spirit, listen to
arguments that are made by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee
and take on board those suggestions that make sense and which will
contribute toward a better Bill. I am delighted to be ably assisted by
my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman), the Government
Whip. As a former teacher, she will ensure good order and
behaviour—at least on our side. The Bill’s scrutiny will
be improved by the Opposition spokesmen, the hon. Member for Cheltenham
(Martin Horwood), who has direct experience of working in some of our
major
charities, and the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner),
who is well known for his diligence and attention to
detail. We also have a
wealth of wisdom and expertise on the Government Benches, including
that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth
(Alun Michael), the former deputy Home Secretary, and my hon. Friend
the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt), the chair of the all-party group
on the community and voluntary sector, and many other talented
Members. We all agree
that the proper scrutiny of the Bill is an important service that
Parliament owes to the charities of this country, so we on the
Government side will keep our contributions short and to the point, so
that all clauses of the Bill can be considered
properly. Mr.
Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): Mrs. Humble, it is a
pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. As the Parliamentary
Secretary said, the Bill is important and presents a huge number of
opportunities for charities. We shall do our best to scrutinise it in
an effective manner and not waste time. We are anxious to ensure that
it is examined in an even fashion, not least because part 3 was not as
vigorously scrutinised in another place as some other parts have
been. As a former
teacher, I assure the Parliamentary Secretary that that qualification
does not enable anyone to impose discipline on anyone else. It is far
more a matter of personality than of former occupation. However,
Opposition Members will do their best to scrutinise the Bill in the
expected
manner. Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause 1Meaning
of
“charity” Martin
Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD): I beg to move amendment No. 70,
in
clause 1, page 1, line 9, leave
out subsection
(2).
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 1, in clause 2, page 2,
line 22, at end
insert— ‘(1a) the promotion
of the efficiency of the police service or the advancement of welfare
for police officers or former police officers and their
dependants.’. No.
2, in clause 2, page 2, leave out lines 26
and 27 and
insert— ‘belief in
a supernatural principle, being or thing and acceptance and observance
of certain canons of conduct to give effect to those
beliefs,’. No.
53, in
clause 2, page 2, line 34, leave
out paragraph
(d). No.
3, in clause 2, page 3, line 7, leave out subsection
(7).
Martin
Horwood: Mrs. Humble, I echo the comments of the
other Front-Bench spokesmen and express my gratitude for your
chairmanship, which I am sure will enlighten what may in some respects
be a heated debate. I congratulate the Minister on the tone of his
introduction to our proceedings and on his approach to the Bill
generally. It is much appreciated.
Like the hon. Member for Isle of Wight, I think that, although members
of the Committee will undoubtedly disagree on certain matters, the
general tone of the debate will be constructive and intended to improve
the quality of the
Bill. Amendment No. 70
would remove subsection (2), which seems to lock inconsistency into
charity law. That raises a general issue for many charities,
particularly those membership and fundraising organisations that often
confer minimal benefits, such as newsletters or membership of a scheme,
in return for otherwise charitable donations, and which in the past
have struggled with numerous definitions of what is and what is not
charitable. For
example, let us suppose that a membership organisation or another
organisation wished to launch a fundraising scheme—not a formal
membership drive, but a fundraising scheme that is designed to attract
members and which offers in return some modest benefit, such as visits
to premises or a newsletter. The mere fact that it is a charitable
organisation would not in the past have been sufficient to convince the
Inland Revenue or Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise that the
proposed scheme was fully charitable. It would have been necessary for
the charity to go through another set of hoops to satisfy the Inland
Revenue and qualify for gift aid, and through another, different set of
hoops to persuade Customs and Excise that it should not carry
VAT. The merger of
Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue into Her Majesty’s
Revenue and Customs seemed to offer the prospect of ironing out that
type of inconsistency. That was an encouraging sign of joined-up
government, but I talked to a fundraiser the other day who said that,
if anything, the situation seems to have got worse since the merger.
There is clearly an issue for the Government to address, if not through
the amendment then by other means, and I would be grateful for the
Minister’s
comments. Amendment
No.1, tabled by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight would
insert: “the promotion of
the efficiency of the police service or the advancement of welfare for
police officers or former police offers and their
dependants;” That is a
worthy cause, which should be regarded as charitable and which deserves
our complete support. My only slight reservation is that we already
have 13 heads of charity. If we added everything that we can think of,
we could end up with a list that is hundreds
long. Alun
Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op): How
would the hon. Gentleman support that amendment? As he said, it seems
worthy of support, in theory and at first blush, but how would he deal
with firefighters, those who man lifeboats and members of similar
professions that provide a distinct and special
service?
Martin
Horwood: That is a reasonable point. However, part of one
of the new heads of charity is “the saving of lives”,
which might encompass both of the right hon. Gentleman’s
suggested examples. On the one hand, the amendment might seem to be
over-egging the pudding somewhat, but on the other hand,
this is probably the last opportunity that anyone has to add to the list
of 13, and I have no problem with making it a list of 14. I would be
happy to see the amendment made: it seems harmless if not entirely
necessary, given that provisions for analogous charitable purposes
might well have allowed the subject of the amendment to pass through as
a charitable
purpose. Tom
Levitt (High Peak) (Lab): I am intrigued as to whether we
are going to have two weeks of debate on amendments promoted on the
basis that they are harmless, albeit not entirely necessary. Will the
hon. Gentleman clarify that that is not the approach he will be taking
to the Bill as a
whole?
Martin
Horwood: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that
intervention, which I am sure was made in the friendly spirit of the
debate. In general, we should not seek to add unnecessary provisions,
but as I said, this is the last opportunity to add to the list of 13. I
see no problem with adding what the amendment proposes.
Amendment No. 2 is much more
serious. It would replace the hard-negotiated provision that emerged
from another place, which does not seek to define religion but does at
least say that religion includes:
“(i) a religion which involves
belief in more than one god,
and (ii) a religion which does
not involve a belief in a
god”. That is quite an
important and thoughtful provision in the Bill as it stands. The hon.
Member for Isle of Wight wishes to replace it with what seems to be an
attempt to define religion—a brave thing for a politician to do.
However, there are many examples of religions that might not pass the
test set out in the amendment.
Belief in a god is not the only
critical factor in a religion. Many religions regard the universe and
everything in it, including any beings such as gods or deities, as
within nature and one part of a whole. Theravada Buddhism, Taoism and,
arguably, many disciplines within Hinduism might present their beliefs
as “all within nature”, so to them the idea of anything
being supernatural would be meaningless. Amendment No. 2 would
therefore be difficult for many eastern religions to accept.
I suspect, however, that the
amendment is aimed not at eastern religions but at those people who
have no belief in God. The important element of the amendment may be
its removal of the reference
to “religion which does
not involve belief in a god”.
In other words, it is aimed at those
secularists and humanists who have religious instincts but do not
believe in a deity. According to the last census, 17 per cent. of my
constituents fall into that category. It is not for us, using the
Charities Bill, to say that according to our definition such people do
not have a religious belief. Humanists have strong ethical and moral
positions on many issues and canons of conduct derived from moral and
philosophical beliefs. To deny that they are religious in the same
sense as people who happen to believe in a deity is insulting to their
beliefs. They have a sense of awe and wonder at the universe and the
natural world and take great inspiration from the majesty of nature and
its processes. That they do not fall into the hon. Gentleman’s
category of having
“belief in a supernatural
principle”
does not mean that they are not religious
in the sense that the Bill is trying to
suggest. Even some
parts of the Church of England might have a problem with the amendment.
Some dioceses might take issue with having to believe in a god as
defined in the Bill. I can imagine a diocese losing its charitable
status one day after the bishop reflects on his theology course and
decides that he does not believe in God after all, or at least not in
the sense that is popularly
intended. Many
organisations, including devout religious organisations such as the
Association for British Muslims, are perfectly happy with the current
phraseology. The association wrote to me and, I suspect, to other hon.
Members to say that the clause will remove the requirement that
religion, in charity law, necessarily involves worship of a supreme
being and will open the way for religion to be interpreted broadly and
on international human rights principles. Before the Bill left the
House of Lords, Lord Bassam accepted that worship was not a necessary
component of religion in charity law. According to the Association for
British Muslims, that appeared to be a satisfactory conclusion to the
definition question, and the association went on to query the Charity
Commission’s intentions in respect of implementing the clause
sufficiently liberally.
The clause, which has commanded
widespread support, was the subject of thoughtful negotiation. We
should not overturn it hastily in favour of the idea of a supernatural
principle, which is open to a lot of
interpretation. James
Duddridge (Rochford and Southend, East) (Con): I am
unclear whether the hon. Gentleman’s main problem is with the
deletion of lines 26 and 27, or with the insertion of the wording
proposed in the amendment. The wording comes from Australian law, where
it is used quite satisfactorily.
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