NHS (Charitable Trusts Etc) Bill

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Kevin Foster

Friday 22nd January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for clarifying his views. I have no problem with paying for consultations when they are necessary and appropriate, but I do not believe that the circumstances likely to pertain to the Bill will be in that category. Issues worthy of consultation are those described by my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay and for North West Hampshire, and the local issues to which I referred.

On amendment 2 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire, I hope he will not be upset if I refer to it as the magic circle amendment—now you see it in the Bill, now you don’t—hey presto. With one stroke, his amendment would remove a power that is at the core of the Bill, as it creates clarity for the charities concerned. I know that every hon. Member who has tabled an amendment today is a passionate supporter of those charities, as are we all. The benefit of the Bill is that it provides clarity to the charities. Under the Bill, trustees will become fully independent. They are left in no doubt about who is responsible for the conduct of the charity and about their own corporate governance. That is a good thing, which empowers them and encourages responsibility.

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend has made some excellent points. Does he agree that the point of the Bill is to make these charities independent and regulated like others? This is the Peter Pan Bill, but the tale of disaster behind the amendments will make them the Tinker Bell amendments.

[Jeremy Quin]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s knowledge of pantomimes. No doubt Captain Hook is in there somewhere. I certainly accept the pith of his remarks. By making the charities fully independent, we provide clarity not only to the trustees by empowering them, but to donors, who will know that their generous gifts to the charities will be looked after by independent trustees.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) referred to the sad state of current polling on Government Ministers. I think we would all agree in this House that those who fulfil the functions of charity trustees are good people doing a good task, and are recognised as such. They are the people whom the generous donors to these charities want to be in command of the assets that they transfer, rather than any other body. That is why I oppose the amendment.

Amendment 7, which stands in the name of my hon. and fashionable Friend the Member for North East Somerset, would merely add to complexity and cost, neither of which is required. In particular, a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General is an unnecessarily bureaucratic step.