Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Nigel Huddleston and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. I want to come on to how we can ensure proper financial management of our charities. That cuts in both directions: how they govern themselves and what percentage of their organisation and resources is deployed on central management.

Kids Company has seen the last and perhaps most prominent scandal, which has raised all manner of questions about the governance of our most high-profile and largest charities, particularly their capacity to handle their finances appropriately. I do not want to dwell on Kids Company, which is an outlier, but it has done huge damage to other charities. That is why those who have been at the heart of it and those parts of Government that have worked with Kids Company have to take it seriously. It is damaging all our charities throughout the country. The powers in the Bill to bar ineffective and inappropriate trustees from acting as trustees will be tested if there are Kids Company-type scandals in future.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

Is that not at the heart of the matter? The vast majority of people who work with, volunteer for or have leadership positions in charities across the UK generally do the right thing in their day-to-day activities. Through this Bill and other initiatives, we need to try to get the right balance between governance and allowing them to get on with doing the things that they really want to do.

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes the point perfectly. It is important to remember that the core activities of our charities are rarely questioned. They are usually performed incredibly well and incredibly sensitively and appropriately. The scandals and disappointments tend to come from the way the operation of our charities occurs. That is why it is incredibly important that trustees play their full role in managing, scrutinising and supporting those organisations, as do directors and non-executive directors of our companies.

The role of a trustee has to be at the heart of it all. The new Bill is important in that regard as the power to bar individuals who are not appropriate to be trustees and who bring charities into disrepute is incredibly important. I would be interested to know from the Minister how many trustees he believes that that would apply to in an average year. Will the difference be marginal, or will it be more significant? As for the question of preventing trustees from moving on, after damaging an organisation, to continue in many others, we all know that many people—many good people—are trustees of several charities and so, inevitably, the bad apples are also involved in many charities. We want to ensure that that involvement cannot continue.

The power to issue warnings to charities is important if the Charity Commission considers their actions to amount to misconduct or mismanagement. Of course, that must be done proportionately and the Charity Commission has not always acted proportionately on a range of other issues, including, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), the issue of the Plymouth Brethren. Had I been in the House at the time, I would certainly have supported that important campaign.

Many involved in the third sector have expressed concern that the Bill gives the commission the benefit of the doubt, but bearing in mind the importance of raising public trust in our charities, particularly the big ones, it is essential that we have a strong regulator with the tools to act. The Bill provides that.

I have some questions and thoughts for the Minister on the role of trustees. First, it is absolutely essential, as Kids Company showed—this seems a simple and obvious point—that a board of trustees contains the right range of expertise. That is stipulated within the guidance of the Charity Commission but, clearly, it does not always happen. In particular, that must include the right range of financial expertise. When charities reach a certain size, like our larger companies, they qualify to be in the FTSE 250. They are huge organisations and require individuals with genuine financial expertise and knowledge of financial controls so that they can scrutinise the organisation and hold it to account.