Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barker and Lord Scott of Foscote

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Scott of Foscote]

I entirely support the amendments proposed by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope for the reasons he has given. As he said, in the Oxford dictionary there are two alternative definitions of the expression “privy to” and neither would be appropriate in this part of the Bill. On,

“sharing in the secret of a person’s plans”,

I suppose that spouses share in the secrets of the plans of their partners, but that does not make them people who ought to be subject to the provisions of this Bill. The other meaning is,

“a person having a part or an interest in an action, matter or thing”.

“Interest” is not appropriate. The substituted words suggested by my noble and learned friend—“participated in”—seem much better and should be accepted.

[Baroness Barker]

My Lords, as a member of the committee, I want to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I love going to Hampton Court. When you go there, particularly if you are a kid, you get to understand how this term came to be. We are not in Tudor times but it is a very important matter. A number of the charities we talked to in the course of our discussions work internationally. They work in very difficult situations, such as in war situations around the world, and at times it can be quite difficult to ascertain the extent to which the trustees know what is happening in their charities.

On the last set of amendments, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, tried to take us to a place where we could understand the difference between management and governance. We are talking very much about governance here, not about the people who run or manage charities and are therefore close to the day-to-day activities of those charities. If the question is about the extent to which trustees in a position of governance need to know what is being done by their charities or can inadvertently be assumed to have known that something adverse happened, then that is absolutely wrong.

I am always interested in things that clarify governance for trustees. Governance is very difficult to pin down. This change of language is an attempt to help the trustees of today understand that distinction between governance and management, and that is laudable.