The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Vicky Foxcroft)
I am pleased to respond to this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) on securing it. She is an incredibly powerful woman—such a powerful woman that she has been able to get the Secretary of State to attend the debate. She also shares powerful woman characteristics with my mother. I have to mention my mother today, because it is her birthday and, sadly, I am not able to be with her.
Village halls and other such spaces are often the lifeblood of our communities, and I pay tribute to the army of workers and volunteers who selflessly provide vital services in them, to communities up and down the country. In the vast majority of cases, these spaces are well-run and treasured by their communities, but on rare occasions, problems can arise.
My hon. Friend has raised concerns about Scarisbrick village hall in her constituency. Such cases highlight the important role that local Members of Parliament can play in resolving issues in their communities. I congratulate her on securing a positive outcome that protects and preserves the war memorial. On the ongoing concerns about the management of the village hall, I note that the Charity Commission opened a regulatory compliance case into the charity in February 2026. The opening of a case is not a finding of wrongdoing, but a step the commission can take to consider concerns in greater detail. The case is ongoing, and the commission is therefore limited in what it can say at this stage. However, I understand that the commission intends to meet the parties involved at the charity’s premises in the coming weeks.
The Charity Commission for England and Wales plays a vital role in helping community charities, such as village halls, to thrive, and in supporting public trust and confidence in charities across the sector.
Grahame Morris
Trust is important, and I support the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), but further to the issues that I raised in my intervention, I point out to the Minister that we are expecting a judgment from the Charities Commission on the evidence provided to it by Members of Parliament representing coalfield constituencies. We gathered that evidence from local authorities, the National Union of Mineworkers, the Industrial Communities Alliance and around 20 locations across the UK coalfields. This is not an isolated issue, so does the Minister believe that the Charity Commission has sufficient powers to effect the change required to hold charities to account for their actions? If I may be so bold, will she agree to meet a delegation from the coalfields group to look at some of the evidence that we have gathered, which should raise concerns for the Charity Commission investigators?
Vicky Foxcroft
I will come to the points that my hon. Friend raises later, but I will say that the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), met the Charity Commission when she was the Minister responsible for civil society to discuss CISWO’s support for coalmining communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) cares deeply about supporting coalfield communities, and the Government and I share that sentiment. I would be happy to meet a delegation.
We rightly rely on the Charity Commission not only to promote best practice and deliver knowledge for trustees, but to step in and act when issues arise. As a civil regulator, its core responsibility is to ensure that trustees comply with their duties under charity law, that charities pursue their charitable purposes for the public benefit, and that any misconduct or mismanagement is addressed. The Charity Commission has a range of statutory, investigatory and enforcement powers at its disposal to effectively regulate charities and address wrongdoing. The Government fully support the Charity Commission in taking proportionate action in such cases, but it is important to note that the Charity Commission can only take action where there is misconduct or mismanagement. Where a charity pursues its charitable purposes within the law and the terms of its governing document, the commission cannot intervene.
Peter Lamb (Crawley) (Lab)
I am a member of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and we have had the Charity Commission in to review matters, in the wake of its attempt to violate privilege in several cases that had been dealt with badly. Would it surprise the Minister to learn that the Charity Commission has expressed concern about the limits of its powers? One example was an incident in which a member of a charity board dealing with children had been asking for intimate photography of children. They resigned from that role, which meant that they could not be disbarred from holding an office in another charity in future, because the powers of the commission apparently did not extend that far.
Vicky Foxcroft
I am interested in having a further discussion with my hon. Friend, because what he has described sounds extremely worrying.
It is undoubtedly important to resolve disputes such as the one raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire, for the benefit of local communities. Indeed, many of the points that she raised seem deeply concerning. However, with more than 170,000 registered charities to regulate, the Charity Commission takes a risk-based approach to regulation to ensure that no issue or complaint is overlooked, while also ensuring that it acts in a proportionate manner and uses its resources to prioritise the highest risks. That means that in some cases the commission cannot take action, or cannot take action as swiftly as those involved would like it to, and final outcomes of casework can depend on the complexity of each individual case. The commission experienced a 50% increase in the number of concerns raised about charities between August 2025 and 2026, which has left its resources severely stretched. It is important that we have a regulator that can act effectively to tackle abuse and mismanagement of charities.
Sir John Hayes
There is a fundamental difference between others raising concerns and a Member of the House doing so. We do this all the time, do we not, in respect of public bodies, Government Departments and so on? That should be given an appropriate degree of weight by the Charity Commission, because we speak for our constituents.
Vicky Foxcroft
I agree. The Secretary of State and I discussed the possibility of presenting this as a test case to establish why it is taking so long to be resolved, and we will explore that further.
In the 2025 spending review, in recognition of all of the challenges faced by the Charity Commission, we gave it a 25% uplift in funding, which is backing a three-year transformation programme to manage rising demands on its services. I know that it has been criticised recently by both the Committee of Privileges and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee for its approach to reports by the Public Service Ombudsman, which made findings of maladministration in two cases. The commission has apologised unreservedly to Parliament in response to the Committee of Privileges report, and has accepted the report in full. I have confidence in the commission’s leadership, and I know that the board is taking action to address the concerns raised by the reports and to learn lessons for its handling of similar cases.
The Government keep the Charity Commission’s powers under regular review, and are committed to strengthening them where needed. On 14 October, the Government published a consultation proposing expanded charity trustee disqualification powers, which will help to protect charities from extremist abuse.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
The Government are rightly consulting on those additional powers for the commission—which I welcome—to disqualify people from being trustees or senior managers if they engage in conduct that promotes hatred of people on grounds of race, religion or belief, but does the Minister agree that we should not limit the powers to those three grounds? We often see discrimination in the form of misogyny or homophobia, and discrimination against disabled people. Would the Minister consider extending her proposals to cover those as well?
Vicky Foxcroft
We will indeed be happy to engage with my hon. Friend and look into his proposals. We will also consider carefully PACAC’s call for a broad review of the Charity Commission’s powers to ensure robust regulatory oversight, and will continue to engage closely with the commission on that.
Let me again thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire for securing the debate, and genuinely thank all the Members who have contributed to it. I think that it has been enhanced by all those contributions.
Question put and agreed to.