Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Grand Committee

I close by saying that I praise those schools where best practice is implemented. The current structure that we have in law and the current arrangement that we have with the Charity Commission creates a loophole through which those who do not wish to engage fully can move and still gain the benefits of charitable status. I want to close that loophole, explore with the Committee ways of doing so and potentially, as a result of the exchanges today, come back at a later stage with a proposal which has the support of the Government and, I hope, the support of the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Cross Benches. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is very supportive of the position that I have attempted to outline to the Committee today to take it forward at that stage. However, perhaps we will not need to get to that conclusion because, as I said at the outset, there is an opportunity here for the Minister to rise to his feet and give a very short answer, saying, “Thank you so much because you have given us the opportunity today to provide the commission with the tools with which to do its job”. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I will follow the line of argument raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, which is that although we see islands of good practice within the charitable public schools community, we want consistency. Many public schools, as we all know, have origins as charitable institutions set up to provide facilities and education to their local communities. To some extent in recent years, links with their local communities have weakened; their facilities, however, have been transformed.

I fell out of state education by going to a choir school when my father’s employers very generously provided me with a scholarship to go to a school in north Oxford set up to educate the sons of the clergy. I remember practising my violin in what was then the school’s music wing, which was a bunch of wooden huts set up during the Second World War for some other purpose. St Edward’s School in Oxford now has a magnificent music wing, and a drama wing, funded by rising fees and contributions from grateful alumni over the years; so have, as we all know, a great many other private—or public, as we call them—schools across Britain. The facilities are there. However, facilities in many state schools have weakened. Specialised coaches and music and drama teachers are very often no longer on the staff. Sometimes the playing fields are not there; the specialised music and drama institutions are certainly not.

I declare an interest as the trustee of two musical education charities and the chair of Voces Cantabiles Music and the Gresham Centre. We have developed over the last 11 years partly through partnerships with a number of public schools: first, with Bedford School and the five schools of the Grey Coat foundation and, secondly, with Bradford College, Ardingly College and Rugby School. In all instances it has been a matter of providing access to the excellent facilities that these public schools have to primary schools and some secondary schools in the region—to bring people together, give them a different quality of experience and so expand their horizons and build their self-confidence. I place on the record our gratitude as a charity to the partnerships we have had with these public schools. However, as the noble Lord said, this is an island of good practice when what we want to see is consistency.

There are other areas of public benefit that some public schools provide very well but which others neglect. My son went to a state school and was a good enough mathematician to be entered in the maths olympiad. When he got into the last 20 of the British Mathematical Olympiad, he was one of only three state school pupils, because the quality of the teaching you get in public schools is so much better than in state schools. When they got down to the final six to go on to the International Mathematical Olympiad, all the pupils were from public schools rather than the state sector. That tells you something. He was then offered a place to study maths at the University of Cambridge, conditional on taking a further set of advanced papers that his state school was incapable of providing him with the coaching for. Happily, Westminster School provided a teacher from its excellent maths department who provided him with weekly tuition in the evenings for a full term, which got him through. That is anecdotal evidence of a partnership of this sort. Public schools that have a better-paid and better-staffed maths department should be thinking about key areas where they could be providing additional coaching for people from state schools at crucial periods in their careers. We are well aware that some public schools now sponsor academies: Wellington College has gone in that direction.

All that the amendment says is that public benefit is important and needs to be demonstrated. Where there are these excellent facilities, which have improved so enormously in recent years, they should be provided for these purposes wherever possible. We would like to see much more consistent advice given, and much more consistent expectation, that the privilege of charitable status should be reflected in the public benefit provided.

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My conclusion to the movers of this amendment is: be careful what you wish for. There are those who argue strongly that the detail of the public benefit test should be set by Parliament. I myself do not agree with that, for various reasons. I do not think that charitable endeavour and the hurly-burly of political life sit well together, and I fear that if these amendments were accepted we would be drifting slowly in that direction.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I must remind the noble Lord that on the previous day that this Committee sat he made a very powerful speech about the need to define rather more clearly some of the elements in the Bill. He now seems to be arguing in entirely the opposite direction.

I recognise that the public benefit test has to be left relatively broad, and indeed both these amendments say so. I also recognise, with regard to the use of the word “fully”, that there are ways in which this amendment might need to be reconsidered.

All that we are attempting to do here is to make it clear that there is an expectation of public benefit, as we have both said. Different schools demonstrate that in different ways, and we all expect them to do so. I have to say that many of us are a little worried about a small minority of schools that now seem to have a large proportion of overseas students, for example, and have raised their fees to such an extent that they are a very long way from the original charitable purposes for which they were founded. If we are nudging them—nudging is, after all, one of the things that this Government are extremely keen on—in the right direction, it is this sort of wording that seems to be pushing them in that direction, and that is what we wish to do. I do not think that we are going down the route of politicisation; we are, however, reminding them—and providing them with some examples—that charitable status is a privilege and public benefit is an expectation.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I entirely agree that charitable status is a privilege. The question is whether that status is better enhanced by statute or by guidance. I am saying that the test should be made clear but it should be a Charity Commission guidance test rather than be put in statute, with all the inflexibilities and ancillary problems that may flow from that.

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Tabled by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

23B: After Clause 13, insert the following new Clause—
“Independent schools’ music and arts facilities: public benefit
In section 4 of the Charities Act 2011 (the public benefit requirement), after subsection (4) insert—“(5) Independent schools which are charities must engage fully with local communities and state schools with a view to sharing facilities for music, drama and arts.
(6) The Charity Commission must publish guidance setting out the minimum that independent schools which are charities must do to comply with the duty in subsection (5).””

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will, if I may, very briefly second what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has said. We will take this away and consider whether we should provide a different form of words. I have to say I was puzzled by the quotation from Ofsted—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

Forgive me, but if the noble Lord is speaking, he must move his amendment at the end of his speech.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My apologies. I had not understood that that was the way Committee stages went. In that case, we will talk off the Floor. I will ask for the exact quote from Ofsted and we will return to this.

Amendment 23B not moved.