Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Leigh of Hurley and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 14th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I should admit that I spent the weekend in Yorkshire, where, to my surprise, my neighbours do not hate people outside Yorkshire and nor do they in fact hate each other. We had a very pleasant weekend. I should also admit that, some months ago, I enjoyed watching the filming of that part of “An Inspector Calls” in our very beautiful village.

We are concerned here with the future of charities. I have found it very constructive to be involved in the thorough Committee and Report stages that we have had on this important Bill. I think we all recognise that as government spending shrinks in the next three or four years, charities will have to play a more important part in looking after a range of good causes and disadvantaged people across our country. That means that the importance we attach to the regulation of charities—the subject of this amendment—is something that requires continuing attention. It also requires active support for philanthropy, and I trust that the Government will pay active attention to encouraging visible philanthropy. I was glad to see the Financial Times highlighting this last week.

Having been involved in the committee to which the noble Baroness referred, which will present its report to the Government shortly, I am slightly more sceptical about standards across the whole universe of charities than I was before. Clearly, there is need for tighter and more visible regulation. A number of charitable trustees have not understood how active and responsible their role should be, and these matters need to be addressed.

There is a continuing role for this House in providing oversight to the charitable sector. Perhaps we should consider, in future years, whether a sessional committee of this House might look at some aspects of the charitable sector. As we saw in Committee and on Report, there is some very valuable expertise in this House.

I think that all of us here accept that charities are not comparable to commercial enterprises, as I and others have heard it suggested on one or two occasions. Charities have a privileged status both in legal and taxation terms. The standards of behaviour that we rightly expect of them reflect that privileged status. These high standards should apply to the whole diverse field of charities: to the development charities, as well as to private schools; to libertarian think tanks, as well as to medical charities. We are entitled to expect that their trustees enforce that.

As a backstop, we need to consider what level of regulation is enforced and implemented and how that regulation is organised. We will indeed be reporting on that. I have some sympathy with the noble Baroness when she says that the role of the Charity Commission also needs to be re-examined as a backstop to whatever formal regulation the sector itself provides.

Having said that, I trust that when our report is presented there will be an opportunity to debate it, and certainly, when the Bill comes back from the Commons, there will be another opportunity to make sure that we have moved matters forward. I merely emphasise again that the charity sector is extremely important to our society and to aspects of our economy. It deserves, therefore, to be fully regulated and as transparent as possible.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in charities as listed in the register of interests. I was going to declare my interest in the fundraising regulation review panel, but I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for doing it for me.

As she says, we are not yet in a position to present our report. On 10 July, Minister Rob Wilson rang me to ask us to start this report. That was an interesting call because, on 9 July, the Prime Minister had thanked me for accepting. But it shows that it is being taken seriously at a very high level. We will have an appropriate moment to thank Sir Stuart Etherington and Elizabeth Chamberlain of NCVO and Susann Hering from the Cabinet Office for the report, which we hope will be published extremely soon. If it is to be published at the Conservative Party conference—I do not think that is the plan—I will personally welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and invite her to sit with me and listen to every word. I hope there will be opportunity for further debate in this House when amendments come back here.

Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Leigh of Hurley and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of a number of charities, national and local, a former trustee of a care charity and, of course, as a senior treasurer of the Conservative Party. I broadly agree with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I remember the arguments on the then transparency of lobbying Bill; I was fairly new to Parliament, and I found myself for the first and only time being lobbied—on a lobbying Bill, as it transpired—by charities. However, I take issue with his remark, unless I misunderstood it, about the charities doing good works being broadly on the left. In the charities that I see, the donors’ register broadly replicates that of the Conservative Party, and there are many good-works charities on the right that are helping people to help themselves. I may have misunderstood.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the chair of trustees of a musical charity, I would welcome the further conversation that we might have on that.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley]

I thank the noble Lord. I also think that I may have misunderstood the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, when she talked about some charities not solely campaigning. My experience is that some charities are solely campaigning ones; in fact, I had personal experience of that only two weeks ago when a raven bird got stuck in my basement. In a moment of panic, and prompted by my young children, I was too frightened to address the issue myself so I rang the RSPB, thinking that that was a logical solution. The RSPB informed me that under no circumstances does it actually go out to assist birds in distress or in danger of damage; no, it is a lobbying charity. I was to either ring another charity or do it myself. In the event, I passed the buck to my wife.

My point is that there are charities that have evolved—some quite rightly, but some perhaps worryingly—into pure campaigning. The charities with which I am involved found the transparency of lobbying Bill helpful, in that it was clear that during the election we had to keep on the straight and narrow. On the boards of the charities with which I am involved sat a broad-array spectrum of political opinions, and it helped to ensure that we all abided by the Act and did not engage in political advocacy during the election.

I am particularly heartened by the comments from my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts that he is taking further evidence on this issue. I rather hope that this can still be discussed at a later stage with that evidence, and I ask for the Minister’s comments on that.