Charities, Social Enterprises and Voluntary Organisations

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, there is lot of sense in what the noble Lord said. One of the things we want to do is to strike a balance. We should remember that all these organisations do good work; that is what they are in business for. We have to be careful about things such as safeguarding. I take the noble Lord’s point about making it near the action, as it were. One thing we are doing is convening two summits, one to focus on international aid charities, which will be jointly chaired by the Secretary of State for International Development, and another, chaired by the Minister for Sport and Civil Society, to concentrate on domestic charities, to look at what we can do to strengthen the safeguarding capability and capacity of charities working across that area. The fact remains that charities and organisations like them do good work on the ground.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, charities are affected not just by regulation but by policy developments. Will the Minister say whether there is a protocol across government to investigate how new policy developments impact on charities and their ability to do their work?