St John Ambulance

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) on securing the debate. I will make some local points about the St John home in my constituency, after which I will address several of the national issues that have been raised and debated by people who have had a longer involvement with the Order of St John than I have. I should perhaps say that my grandfather was the St John Ambulance county commissioner for Kent. At the time, he was the county’s largest employer, so I imagine that the many years of his time that he gave for free were of some value. That was a long time ago, but more recently a friend of mine has been involved with the St John eye clinics in Palestine, and I am constantly impressed when I see people on the St John operation.

I will focus specifically on the St John home in Tankerton in my constituency. That much-loved home was founded in 1947 and given to the Priory of England and the Islands in 1955. It was transferred to St John Ambulance in 1999, and it has always had a separate governance structure. The people who gave the home its £750,000 in assets did so, almost without exception, because they had a connection with the home. Had any of them realised that its separate governance structure had no legal basis and that those assets might one day be seized by the centre, I suspect that the fundraising would have taken a very different shape. The capital earns around £30,000 in interest, which bridges the gap between the cost of running the home and the income that it receives from residents and Kent county council. The home is small, with only 18 beds, and that money is essential for its financial viability.

I have huge respect for my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), but I found some of his contribution surprising. I was surprised by his allusion to the restructuring of the Red Cross, and the fact that he did not pass on—perhaps because St John had not told him—what actually happened with the Red Cross reorganisation. When he referred to the St John home in my constituency, however, I was truly staggered to hear him quoting from the letter of 17 October from the prior, when the letter that we received only a fortnight later dated 5 November stressed that the moneys referred to in previous correspondence could not be regarded as legally restricted. As the separate governance structure of the home is being broken up, there is nothing to stop the priory taking those moneys at any notice.

I will turn to the national picture before saying a few words about the role of the Charity Commission, which is the core of the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) mentioned concerns about how criticism of the changes in St John has been treated. Of course, wherever there is change, some people will be against it, but never in any charity— I have seen it occasionally in a political party—have I seen the kind of conduct that has reportedly occurred over the past two years.

I shall expand a little on what my hon. Friends have referred to. There was a no-confidence motion in January 2013, as a result of which 10 people were suspended. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood) said that the leafy parts of Kent formed too large a part of the debate, so let me quote from my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who is unfortunately detained in the debate on the Floor of the House. She was contacted by a constituent who is an old friend and was one of those suspended. She wrote to me:

“I am very concerned to have heard from my constituent that 10 senior members of the chapter of St John were suspended last March on charges of gross misconduct”—

basically for saying that they did not agree with what was going on—

“on account of signing a motion of no confidence in the trustees and excluded from any further work or contact with St John for the best part of a year. A debate was held as a result of this properly constituted and well supported motion, and in the event the motion was only defeated on a 40/60 split.”

Many of those involved in the debate had served for more than 20 years. My hon. Friend continued:

“The process for deciding on the charges has been dysfunctional and frankly beyond parody”—

those are her words, not mine—

“resulting in each of them being found guilty of the charges and given ‘suspended sentences’ of exclusion from office.”

I have dug a little further into the matter, and I want to share one fact that illustrates the extent to which governance has broken down in the organisation. The case was heard by an individual who was, on paper, extremely well qualified. He had a long involvement with St John, he had legal training and he was a clergyman. Unfortunately, he breached the first principle of natural justice, because he had been an extremely partisan participant on the other side of the debate. He could not, by any possible standards, be said to be independent. Such a breach of administrative justice should not be allowed to occur in any well-founded organisation.

I move on to the role of the Charity Commission. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet asked the Minister, whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber—I know that, in the short time he has had available to prepare, he has taken a close interest in the case—a specific question, and I would like to ask another one. Is it right that the Charity Commission should confine itself to areas in which it has a specific legal duty to intervene? Might one reasonably expect any regulatory body—one thinks of the Bank of England, as a larger example—to take an informal interest when concerns are reported, and perhaps to do some informal prodding and make the odd telephone call?

I hope that hon. Members do not regard me as particularly pompous, but I find it extraordinary that after a group of MPs wrote to the Charity Commission, it would refuse to see us to discuss the matter. Whatever the merits of a case, if the Charity Commission is not even willing to discuss it with elected representatives, something has gone wrong in the organisation. It may well examine what is going on in the St John charity and conclude that the whole thing is a storm in a teacup, although I maintain that the administrative failings of the process at the centre, and the changing of mind on the various guarantees paid to the St John home in my constituency, need serious answers. The Charity Commission has been unwilling even to hold a meeting. Of course, since we secured the debate, the organisation has said that it will be happy to see us, but it was not able to fit us in before the debate.

[Mr Gray]

May I make a point on behalf of the charity commissioners? I understand that my hon. Friend may well be frustrated by the inability to hold such a meeting. However, does he agree that, if the charity commissioners were to start having meetings of that kind, with either one side or the other, about the many thousands of charities that might well be in similar disputes throughout the nation, they would be doing nothing else with their time—there are very few of them—and would become improperly involved in the internal politics of the charities? That would seem to be an absolutely wrong use of the commissioners’ time.

[Mr Brazier]

In its correspondence to us, the Charity Commission said that a charity’s trustees are legally responsible for all aspects of a charity’s management and administration, which I am sure we would all agree with. It went on to say that the commission would take action only if it believed that its regulatory powers were necessary or would be of use. In other words, an informal investigation is ruled out. That is very odd, however, because, to answer my hon. Friend’s question directly, the Charity Commission’s own description of its responsibilities and duties on its website states that it should be concerned with

“breaches of trust or abuses that otherwise impact significantly on public trust and confidence in the charity and charities generally”.

Given that three MPs representing different parties and areas—the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) may have been born in Kent, but she represents a seat in Derbyshire—had already expressed concerns, and that, from memory a fourth, my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, came on board between the two letters, I would have thought that this was more than just a casual inquiry. I would have thought that the Charity Commission would have liked to have been involved.

I have detained Members for long enough, but would like to end with what I was about to say before the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), for whom I have huge respect. St John Ambulance is a very precious charity. Every single MP who has spoken in this debate believes passionately in it, and most have had a much greater involvement with it than I have. It seems that something has gone wrong, and that the Charity Commission should be looking at that.