Charities Bill [HL] Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Bellingham
Main Page: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bellingham's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Other BusinessI thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, for tabling Amendment 7, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for moving it, and those who raised this issue in the written and oral evidence that the Committee heard. By way of background, new Section 280A will create a new power for unincorporated charities to amend any provision in their governing documents. This brings the amendment powers available for unincorporated charities more in line with those for incorporated charities, supporting the Bill’s policy to create greater consistency for different legal forms of charities. In a similar vein, charitable incorporated organisations and charitable companies both have the right to appeal a decision by the Charity Commission to give or withhold consent to a request to make a regulated alteration to their governing documents.
The Minister talked about appeal to the Charity Commission. One of the matters the Committee looked at in some detail was the time it took for those appeals to get processed and transacted. He said that he would look at that matter and at some stage report back to the Committee on how he feels we could improve the whole process and speed it up.