European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2014
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That the draft Order and Regulations laid before the House on 24 February and 5 March be approved.
Relevant document: 22nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 31 March.
Electoral Fraud
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Lord Naseby
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recommendations of the recent Electoral Commission report Electoral Fraud in the UK, what action they propose to take to tackle electoral fraud.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, we are carefully considering the Electoral Commission’s report and recommendations and will respond in due course. We are clear that any changes to the electoral system should be proportionate and not impose unnecessary barriers to participation by legitimate voters.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I welcome that Answer, as far as it goes, and pay tribute to the work of the Electoral Commission. However, are there not three key dimensions to its report: first, the integrity of the registration; secondly, ensuring that the person voting is the person who is on the register; and, thirdly and lastly, the accuracy of the count? I have had the privilege to win elections by 179 and 141 votes. Against that sort of background, can my noble friend give a commitment that there will, in the next Session of Parliament, be legislation on at least all these three dimensions of electoral law?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am not sure how one would legislate on the accuracy of the count. We have a whole system of poll watching, which noble Lords are all well aware of and which most of us, I am sure, have taken part in many times, to check the accuracy of the count. On the question of moving towards individual registration, the introduction of the national insurance number as a verifier is intended as a check on who is being registered. On the question of personation and checking on those who turn up, we are watching that very carefully and are now checking with police officers on reports. All the evidence we have is that the level of personation is extremely low.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, in contrast to my noble friend Lord Naseby, I was once elected with a majority of nine, so I take a considerable personal interest in this matter. On 6 February, we had some exchanges on this issue when my noble friend the Minister emphasised that the risk in this area is of course with postal votes. Can my noble friend now confirm whether every single postal vote cast in next month’s local and European Parliament elections will be checked against a personal identifier?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, that was the original intention of the 2006 Act. However, representations from electoral registration officers that that would be difficult led to the Act stating that a minimum of 20% should be checked. In recent elections, we have achieved virtually 100% of postal votes being checked, and we are now confident that with the co-operation of electoral registration officers, it will be 100% in the forthcoming general election.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, there must be zero tolerance for those found breaking the law, but any attempt to prevent millions of law-abiding citizens from being able to cast their vote by post would be hugely disproportionate. Why have the Government done absolutely nothing to get the more than 6 million of our fellow citizens who are presently not registered on to the electoral register? IER, when it is introduced, is not going to solve the problem; it is going to make it worse.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, as I have said before at this rostrum, the Government are doing a great deal to maximise the level of registration. We all recognise that we will never reach 100%. The proportion registered had been going down over the previous 15 years and we recognise that there are particular problems, especially with young people. A range of government schemes is currently under way, in co-operation with a range of non-governmental organisations, to raise in particular the number of disadvantaged groups and young people who register to vote. Online registration is but one of the things that we are doing.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, the basis of any fair electoral system must surely be one voter, one vote. Yet the constituency of the Isle of Wight has more than 111,000 voters while the outer islands constituency has barely 22,000. Is my noble friend able to offer any sensible explanation as to why a vote in the Isle of Wight—or in East Ham, Manchester Central or North West Cambridgeshire—is worth only one-quarter or even one-fifth of a vote elsewhere? Does he believe that this is in any way liberal or even vaguely democratic?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, understands that the process of politics is not entirely rational. In the most recent discussions of electoral redistribution, there was an active campaign to prevent the Isle of Wight being split and there was an active campaign to exempt the various Scottish island constituencies. That is the reason for these exceptions to the general rule.
Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)
Will the Minister tell the House whether either the Government or the Electoral Commission have given any thought to following the example of Australia, Luxembourg and a few other countries of making voting compulsory?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The Government have considered everything, but that is not an idea that has led to enormous enthusiasm within government or, I suspect, within this House.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, is it not true that had the Government not taken an irrational decision, an ID card would now be being introduced? We would have been solving problems with registration because everybody would have been entitled to registration. They could have been checked for validity and they could have been voting. We would not have the problem to the same degree that we have with border control, immigration, the NHS, landlords and a whole range of different databases that have now had to be created by this Government. Will they not think again on that?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we have been through that debate over an extended period. The Government are not persuaded that the original ID card scheme was necessary. It would be extremely costly. As far as voting is concerned, the level of allegations of voting fraud and impersonation is remarkably low. There were in the order of 179 allegations of different sorts of electoral fraud last year, for example, which is within a range of confidence as to the problems we face.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Many believe that postal voting fraud is widespread. Is my noble friend confident that it is not?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, postal vote fraud has always been there. I am old enough to remember constituencies in which representatives of at least one party would go round old people’s homes and fill in the ballot papers with the matron. I will not name which parties might have been engaged in that. That is not new. Postal vote fraud is a problem with which we are all concerned. That is why postal vote identifiers have now been tightened up.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)
My Lords, having correctly pointed out the appallingly low turnout for elections and, on top of that, the appalling low registration figures, does my noble friend accept that a major contributor to that parlous state of affairs is that so many young people feel outside the tent, so to speak, vis-à-vis politics, which is complex, and that people need some sort of education before they leave their schools? Will the Government do something about that?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, has a Question on exactly that to be debated next week, which I look forward to answering. I must say that during the transition to individual electoral registration, the level of registration that we have so far achieved has been much higher than some of us originally worried might be the case.
European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2014
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That the Grand Committee do consider the European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2014.
Relevant document: 22nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the first five instruments before us today are for debate together. The two sets of referendums regulations and the police and crime commissioner elections order update respectively the rules for the conduct and administration of local authority council tax referendums, referendums concerning a local authority’s governance arrangements in England, and elections of police and crime commissioners in England and Wales. In the main, they do so by applying or copying provisions in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 and associated secondary legislation, which made a number of changes to the rules for UK parliamentary elections. Noble Lords will be familiar—possibly by now very familiar—with many of these measures, which we have considered in earlier debates on instruments which apply the measures for the conduct of other elections and referendums.
The combination of polls regulations make a small number of changes to the conduct rules and forms used by voters that apply when the poll at a parliamentary election is combined with a poll at another election or referendum. The European parliamentary elections regulations clarify certain issues, mainly arising from the changes made for the conduct of European parliamentary elections by amending regulations made in 2013.
In the main, the changes introduced by all five instruments are intended to come into effect for polls held on or after 22 May 2014, which is the date of the European parliamentary elections and scheduled local elections in parts of England. The changes are designed to improve the accessibility and security of the voting process, and implement a number of recommendations which have been made by, among others, the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators.
The two sets of regulations concerning local authority council tax and governance referendums contain an additional provision on calculating the campaign expenditure limit for campaigners at these referendums. We intend that this should come into force on the day after the two instruments are made. I will set out this change in more detail shortly.
The instruments are part of a comprehensive package of statutory instruments which make various changes to the rules for conducting elections and referendums in the UK. The Government have consulted on the changes with the Electoral Commission and with others such as the Association of Electoral Administrators.
I turn to the provisions in the two sets of regulations concerning local authority council tax and governance referendums, and the PCC elections order. The two sets of referendums regulations change the basis on which the campaign expenditure limit is calculated for local authority council tax and governance referendums. It is currently calculated by reference to the number of electors on the register published after the annual canvass in the year preceding the referendum. However, under the transition to individual electoral registration, a post-canvass register was not produced in 2013. We are therefore providing that in future the limit will be calculated by reference to the register as it exists at the beginning of the referendum period. This period begins at least 28 working days before a council tax referendum, and at least 56 working days before a local authority governance referendum.
All three instruments, including the PCC elections order, update the forms used by voters, such as poll cards and postal voting statements, which are intended to make the voting process more accessible. The instruments also provide for police community support officers to enter polling stations and counting venues under the same conditions as police constables. This will allow police forces additional flexibility in deploying their resources on polling day, and allow them to provide greater visible reassurance to the public. The instruments provide that voters waiting in the queue at the close of poll at 10 pm on polling day, for the purpose of voting, may be issued with ballot papers to enable them to vote or may return postal voting statements or postal ballot papers despite the close of poll.
Members of the Committee may wish to note that relevant revisions in the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 apply to the local authority council tax and governance referendums instruments, so amendments recently made to those regulations will apply also to these referendums, without the need for further changes to the referendums instruments. Further, the provisions have been copied into the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Amendment) Order so that they will apply to those polls. These recent amendments include a requirement for 100% of postal vote indicators to be checked rather than the current minimum of 20%; extension of emergency proxy provisions to those absent on grounds of business or military service; and removal of the restriction on postal votes being dispatched earlier than the 11th working day before the day of the poll.
The Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Amendment) Order also makes changes to the timing of certain proceedings at PCC elections which will ensure greater consistency with the position at other elections and will facilitate the earlier dispatch of postal votes. In particular, the deadline for candidates to withdraw their nomination is moved from noon on the 16th working day before the poll to 4 pm on the 19th working day before the poll. This will allow postal ballot papers to be printed and therefore issued earlier than at previous elections.
I now turn to the combination of polls regulations. These regulations make a small number of changes to the conduct rules and forms used by voters that apply when the poll at a parliamentary election is combined with a poll at another election or referendum. This includes updating the notice that must be displayed in polling station compartments by making the information clearer for voters. For example, it advises voters to put a cross in the box next to their choice on the ballot paper. The instrument also updates the guidance for voters which is displayed in polling stations when a poll at a parliamentary election is combined with a poll at another election or referendum. The updated guidance gives clearer instructions to voters, including the use of images, to help voters cast their votes.
I turn now to the fifth and final instrument, the European Parliament elections regulations. They, too, make a small number of changes at European parliamentary elections. In particular, they amend the provisions that were inserted by the amending regulations made in 2013 to enable voters waiting in the queue at the close of poll to be issued with a ballot paper and cast their vote at a European parliamentary election. These provisions also enable persons queuing at the polling station at the close of poll in order to return a postal ballot paper or, if they had forgotten to put it in the covering envelope, a postal voting statement to return it.
The instrument before us today ensures that these provisions allowing the return of postal ballot papers apply when a European Parliament election is combined with another poll in England, Wales and Scotland. They also make improvements to the wording on the polling station compartment notice when a European parliamentary election is combined with another poll in England and Wales. The changes reflect the different voting instructions that it may be necessary to display if a European Parliament election is combined with a PCC election or a local referendum because these will, of course, have different voting systems.
In conclusion, these instruments make sensible and relevant changes to the conduct and administration of the polls that they cover in line with those that have been made for UK Parliamentary elections and other polls. They are designed to increase voter participation, further improve the integrity of our electoral system and ensure that the processes underpinning our elections are both more robust and more relevant to the needs of voters. I commend these instruments to the Committee.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I have only a few points to make in this short debate. Generally we support the regulations and the order and have no issues whatever with them. I have a couple of general points to make and one or two questions, but, generally speaking, we are fine with these. I will go through point by point. In terms of consultation, I think the noble Lord mentioned a couple of times consultation with the commission and with the Association of Electoral Administrators and such. Can he tell us about what consultations actually go on with the parties? I do not think much goes on. Maybe it is done through the Electoral Commission now, but I do think there should be more direct contact with the parties than there has been. I know that we have the panel meeting after the Electoral Commission’s political parties panel but I do not know whether there is more than that. There would be a surprising amount of unanimity from the parties on these things, as they have a lot of expertise that the Government could learn from. I know that the Government have some contact, but they could do more on that.
I saw in the note about the regulations on referendums that it refers to the issue about queuing at polling stations. Again, I welcome the fact that people will be issued with a ballot paper if they get there by 10 pm. My only slight worry is that while that all sounds well and good, how will it actually be controlled when it happens? We may not have this situation in the local elections happening next month, and perhaps not in the European elections, but at general election time we certainly need to think about how we will look after that. Yes, someone could arrive at 10 pm, but how is that to be controlled? It is quite hard to control and police it, and so on. The Government can make these regulations, but unless they are very specific about how things actually happen, they will just create another set of problems that cannot be overcome in a draughty church hall somewhere at 9.55 pm. If not now, the Government need to look at that sort of thing and be very specific. Presiding officers certainly need to know exactly how to handle these things; there is an issue there.
The point about police community support officers having the right to enter polling stations is, again, a sensible and welcome move. It certainly lifts a burden from police officers and ensures that there can be a uniformed presence in and around polling stations, which is very welcome. I saw that there is an extension of the proxy emergency provisions on the grounds of doing business or service. I am assuming that they are being extended in the same way as for every other category that can have an extension.
Those are probably the only points that I have. As I said, I do not have a huge issue with anything here; the instruments all seem very sensible. I will make one observation. While we will agree these regulations today, and they will go to the House next week, it is all terribly complicated and I look forward very much to the Law Commission coming forward with its recommendations so that we can get something much more streamlined. This should be a relatively simple process, but we have to have instruments for referendums, police and crime commissioner elections and local authority elections when it is really all the same stuff. The sooner we get this all looked at and repackaged, and put together much more sensibly, the better it will be for everyone concerned.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I share the noble Lord’s feeling on streamlining. There are of course some problems in that, as we have devolved authority to the devolved Assemblies, and as we have introduced a number of different electoral systems—I think there are three or four electoral systems operating now within Scotland, for example—some of this stuff becomes more complicated. We are, as the noble Lord knows, balancing between doing everything we can to make it easier for people to vote and encouraging that, and guarding against fraud. That also requires a delicate balance. However, I agree with him: I hope that it will be possible at some point to simplify the extremely complicated legislation that we now have for these different sets of elections and referendums. Referendums are, after all, still a relatively new dimension of British democracy and perhaps the next Government will take that on, with the assistance of the Law Commission.
On the particular questions that the noble Lord asked, there is no formal process for consultation with the political parties, but I understand that a number of informal conversations are had with them. I will check on that and I promise to write to the noble Lord if there is anything useful that I can say on it, because I take his point about the political parties. Miraculously, I discover that I now have an answer. We meet the Electoral Commission’s political parties panel quarterly and raise the question of new SIs being made. I expect that the noble Lord will be familiar with who attends the political parties electoral panel from the Labour Party. It may indeed have been him—yes, I see that it was.
On the closing of polls, let me say in passing that this was a very small issue last time. It happened in a total of 27 polling stations in 10 constituencies at the 2010 election, with just over 1,200 people being affected. We do not know whether this will turn out to have been a one-off or whether it will become a wider phenomenon in future. We took this decision because we had come up with this problem in 2010, and we expect that the Electoral Commission will provide additional guidance on how we manage this in the future. The noble Lord is entirely right, of course, to say that a situation in which a large number of people attempted to storm a polling station at 10 pm would be very difficult for anyone to handle. We have to hope that that sort of event will not happen. Guidance will certainly be offered to returning officers on the close-of-poll provisions and the Electoral Commission will assist with that. I hope that I have now covered most of the noble Lord’s questions. I am glad that these regulations have received a general welcome and commend them to the Committee.
Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (Council Tax Increases) (England) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2014
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That the Grand Committee do consider the Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (Council Tax Increases) (England) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2014.
Relevant document: 22nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2014
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That the Grand Committee do consider the Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2014.
Relevant document: 23rd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Amendment) Order 2014
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That the Grand Committee do consider the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Amendment) Order 2014.
Relevant document: 22nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
Representation of the People (Combination of Polls) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2014
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That the Grand Committee do consider the Representation of the People (Combination of Polls) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2014.
Relevant document: 22nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
Energy: Fracking
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The Earl of Caithness
My noble friend has just completed my paragraph for me. That is exactly what I was going to say. Despite the high density of population, it can be done and has been done very successfully. It is not surprising that when you live in an area where houses are expensive, you do not mind at all that there is industrialisation of the fine Scottish landscape with turbines but you will not have anything on your own doorstep. There has to be a way for the Government to get around that hurdle of environmental intolerance by some people in the south of England.
The noble Lord, Lord Borwick, mentioned air pollution. Paris has got such bad air pollution that cars now are being driven on alternate days.
The Earl of Caithness
Perhaps I may conclude because I allowed for interruptions. There has been a recent report, Are We Fit to Frack?. The reason these so-called wildlife bodies do not like fracking is that there might be cracks in the pipework. That is what regulation is about. Those people drive cars, which are hazardous. There also is lots of light pollution. People will probably object to the very good idea of building a new town at Ebbsfleet because of light pollution.
Intelligence and Security Committee
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, Section 1 of the Justice and Security Act 2013 makes provision for the changes to the arrangements for appointing members of the ISC, to which the noble Lord refers. It provides that members of the ISC will,
“be appointed by the House of Parliament from which the member is to be drawn”,
and that the chair of the ISC will be chosen by its members from among its members. Until this Act came into effect, members and the chair were appointed by the Prime Minister.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the idea of making the ISC a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament was to improve its independence and effectiveness? Surely, this is compromised with a former Conservative Foreign Secretary in the chair, only three Labour MPs and no Labour Peers in its membership. Therefore, will the Government enter into discussions with the Official Opposition to ensure that we get a better balance on the committee, including Labour Peers and an opposition chair, so that it can obtain some degree of credibility?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am conscious that for some time the only Member of this House on the Intelligence and Security Committee was indeed the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and then it expanded to two. There is no reference in the Justice and Security Act to the division of the current nine members between the two Houses. Noble Lords will be aware that yesterday Yvette Cooper made a speech on further reforms and that this morning the Deputy Prime Minister made a speech in which he suggested that we should move from the current nine members to a future membership of 11, as with other Select Committees. However, he made no specific reference to the division between the two Houses.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
Would not greater accountability to the ISC and Parliament be provided if the chairman of the ISC was given unrestricted access to all operational material in the agencies, with the safeguard that, where such information exceeds what is currently permissible within the law, it is provided to the wider membership of the ISC committee by the chairman only with the permission of the agency chiefs concerned? That would really increase accountability to Parliament.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, there were a number of questions about increasing the capacity of the committee. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, as on previous occasions, mentioned the thinness of the staff assisting the committee. That is now being strengthened. In both Ms Cooper’s speech yesterday and the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech this morning, the suggestion was made to strengthen further the size and capabilities of the staff. The question of whether the chair should be drawn from the governing party or one of the opposition parties is also out there in the open. There is nothing in the Act that says whether the chair of the committee should be a member of one party or another.
Lord Strasburger (LD)
My Lords, the Americans have been vigorously debating surveillance and the internet for more than six months. Yesterday the shadow Home Secretary joined in, and today the Deputy Prime Minister made an excellent contribution. When will the Home Office and the Foreign Office abandon their pretence that all is well and that there is nothing to discuss?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Justice and Security Act is less than a year old and was a useful step forward. I am conscious that the Snowden leaks, so to speak, and all the other questions about just how wide the collection of information by intelligence agencies across the world is, have stimulated a further debate. I have no doubt that that debate will continue, including within this House.
Lord Richard (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Foulkes asked what changes the Government propose. Do they propose any changes in relation to this matter or are they still waiting?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we have only just commenced and set into effect the Justice and Security Act. The first public meeting of the Intelligence and Security Committee under the Act took place some three months ago, so we are still discussing the next stage. That is not particularly dilatory, given that we are moving in the right direction. We are looking at the current revelations about the sheer scale of internet surveillance, which perhaps raise further issues for discussion.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that however the chairman is chosen, and from whichever party he might come, it would be very difficult to find a chairman better qualified and with more credibility and authority than Sir Malcolm Rifkind?
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I have to preface my remarks by saying that I speak as a member of a party that values marriage but also values all stable relationships.
Sir David Omand, the former director of GCHQ, has said that,
“staff in the intelligence agencies would welcome deeper but more informed oversight, not least to protect their reputation”.
Notwithstanding the new Act, it is clear that in this digital age the pace of technological change is so rapid that I am sure the noble Lord would agree that the ISC should be strengthened further in terms of digital and technological expertise. What plans might there be for those to be strengthened in the current circumstances?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
There is the question of the size, scale and expertise of the staff of the committee. The 2011 Green Paper raised the question of whether the current two commissioners, the Intelligence Services Commissioner and the Interception of Communications Commissioner, might be combined into one and given rather greater authority. What we are discovering about the speed of change with the internet—not just the hoovering up of information on the internet by government agencies but the whole question of the hoovering up of our personal information by private agencies—is an issue that we all clearly need to discuss further. The Government have been developing a draft communications data Bill on which we will all have to consider how we move forward, probably in the first Session of the next Parliament.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I make it clear to the House, and particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, that I was in no way impugning the personal integrity of Malcolm Rifkind, who is a long-standing personal friend of mine, but stating the principle of having an opposition chair for such an important committee, as we have for the Public Accounts Committee.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we are all quite clear that this is also partly a question of transparency, accountability and public trust, and greater transparency would help to improve public trust.
Charity Commission
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this debate. Given how important the charities sector is for the country, holding regular debates on aspects of charities law and charities regulation seems to be one role that the second Chamber might usefully consider as particularly valuable for itself. These are immensely complex issues, as we all know. We have inherited charities law as developed over the past 400 years, and it continues to adapt. I have spent some time looking at public benefit issues and think I am persuaded that if we were to define “public benefit” now, in statute form, we would find ourselves having even more legal cases about the edges of public benefit. I am therefore persuaded that allowing it to evolve through case law is very important, in particular, for those elements of charities which are concerned with religion. For the first 300 years of charities law, it was almost entirely concerned with charities associated with the Church of England or, after some time, with a number of non-conformist churches. That eventually included a small number of Jewish charities and, as we all know, it now extends over a much wider area, in which the questions of what religion and belief are have come to be very much part of where we all are.
I will take on the question of the Preston Down Trust case, which went before the tribunal. One of the things I think I have learnt is that using the charities tribunal, which was intended to save money and time, has now become a very expensive legal activity. It was felt more useful therefore to negotiate. We have negotiated an agreement which will be reviewed after a year and we will see where we are then. The noble Baroness is well aware of the intensive lobbying that there was on both sides, including by a number of MPs from within her own party—not always, I think, necessarily wisely. However, this is now in train, it will be continued, and a review will take place.
To come back to where my noble friend Lady Barker started, this is an important sector which has a gross income of £61 billion, although I suspect that contains a certain amount of double counting because some charities give money to other charities. It includes more than 160,000 different charities, although 1,000 are the most important and account for the largest amount of spending. As the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, said, the sector has become much more professional, and in certain ways some of the larger charities have become a good deal more ruthless, which is part of what I discovered in the extensive consultation I had with large charities over the transparency of lobbying Bill. It is a much more professional sector than it was. Reading through the evidence given to the PAC and others shows that the Charity Commission has been going through a change of culture from one in which you automatically assume that almost everyone in this sector is full of good will and altruism and that the role of the Charity Commission is to be helpful and offer advice, to one in which we recognise that a small number of charities, whether small or large, test the limits or are involved in actual fraud, and that the Charity Commission has therefore got to be a less trusting regulator. Questions have been raised by a number of noble Lords about whether it can do that and whether its resources are too small. Reading through the various reports and the evidence given, it is quite clear to me that if the new Charity Commission board and chief executive can make a strong and positive case for additional resources, the Government will look at it very carefully. Whether some element of charging for larger charities becomes part of that larger package may be for a further debate on another occasion, but we recognise that resources are now extremely stretched and that the clear regulation we need requires to be strengthened.
Digital transition is an important part of this, as the noble Baroness said. The Government have provided a further £500,000 of capital spending to the Charity Commission to assist in moving towards an easier digital openness strategy. As a trustee of a couple of musical education charities, I agree strongly with the noble Baroness that simple provision in digital form of accounts, declaration of public benefit and all the things that one needs to do, as well as advice to trustees, is exactly what one needs. When I went around the Charity Commission’s website last week looking for a simple definition of public benefit, it was not as easy to find as I had hoped and expected, so there are improvements to be made.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I reassure the Minister that he has not been deficient in his trawl of the website: it is just that there is no simple definition of public benefit. It is intrinsically complex.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That is one of the reasons why charity lawyers can make such a good living.
The Cup Trust, into which I have looked in detail, was raised. As has been said, clearly that was fundamentally a tax avoidance scheme. The Charity Commission decided that it could not take up the case. I am assured that HMRC has not paid out any money on the tax avoidance scheme. It issued guidance about such schemes at an early stage in the process and is now resisting paying the gift aid refunds that the scheme was set up to gain.
On the transparency of lobbying Act, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, on a number of issues, but I also disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I have learned a great deal about the shift in a number of big charities towards campaigning, but campaigning has always been part of what charities have done. One of the most impressive discussions I had was with the dementia trust, which has managed by campaigning to raise public awareness of the importance of the issue—to raise the quality of understanding of an extremely important public issue. That is entirely legitimate and desirable in the public debate. The idea that charities should not have a campaigning dimension is something that I hope we all accept is not appropriate. Let me reassure the right reverend Prelate that the Act in no way affects hustings in the run-up to the 2015 election. A great deal of exaggerated concern was put out during the passage of the then Bill about what it might do. If you read CC9—I must have read it 15 times in the last year—it is entirely clear that it is not affected by that Act, and that churches will continue in their extremely valuable role in public education in this respect.
I hope that I have now answered a number of the issues raised. Why not charge charities? The question is out in the open. Needless to say, charities do not respond with much enthusiasm to that suggestion. The Government are looking at the question of how we provide the resources needed for regulation. I have also discussed public benefit. We all have a concept of public benefit. Happily, no one today has mentioned public schools—that is out there as well. Public benefit can be provided in a range of different ways. Case by case, you look at the sort of public benefit being provided, but it has to be public. The noble Baroness will know that, in religious cases, those religious bodies that do not open some of their facilities to a broader public and do not provide wider benefit to a broader public are therefore not accepted as charities.
On the question of executive remuneration, the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, said that he regretted that the new chairman of the Charity Commission had offered some criticism. Charities are in the public sector and in the public view, so they need the respect of their members and people who give money. During the consultation on the transparency of lobbying Bill, I remember being told by representatives of a large charity that it is important that the charity should maintain its reputation because the people who give small sums of money need to know that it has that reputation. That is part of the reason why charities need to be aware of the dangers of becoming overly professional and corporate. Some of our big charities have edged a little far in that direction.
On the question of co-regulation, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Best, the Charity Commission now has a clear partnership strategy and works with a number of partners. Incidentally, we are aware of the question of accepted charities and how to move towards a different situation with them without swamping the Charity Commission.
The question of a charities ombudsman has also been discussed. The Government are not yet convinced that the case has been made. The Charity Commission does its best to respond to queries from charities. Part of the reason why the Charity Commission has been swamped in recent years is because many charities throw a lot of queries for advice at it which get in the way of its compliance activity.
I hope that I have answered most of the points raised. I encourage the noble Baroness and other noble Lords to return to this question regularly. This is a large and important part of our social fabric and economy, and we need to be sure that it continues to command the confidence and respect of the public, politicians, government and financial accountants.