Martin
Horwood: I have a lot of sympathy with the hon.
Gentleman’s amendment—or I did, before his speech.
Perhaps I will get my own back in a minute. He makes a serious point:
the Charity Commission is an extraordinarily powerful body. That came
home to me when I worked for Oxfam; recently, its reputation, and its
very future as a charity, had been under question, largely because
members of the Conservative party, in those days, seemed less convinced
of the presumption of public benefit attaching to organisations. I
speak of organisations such as Oxfam, which not only address the relief
of poverty, but seek to prevent it by addressing its fundamental
causes, and campaigning on that basis. As I say, Oxfam’s
reputation, and indeed its future as a charity, did, in one sense, hang
in the balance, and depended on the judgment of the Charity Commission.
I am pleased to say that the Charity Commission came to enlightened and
correct conclusions about the status of Oxfam, but had it not done so,
it would have been a very serious matter that would have affected the
lives of millions of vulnerable people from around the world, not just
in the UK.
It is right that a body that has
such powerful influence over some of the most vulnerable in our society
and others is subject to the fullest scrutiny. Much in the Bill
reflects that. It introduces bodies such as the charity appeal
tribunal, which provides a court of appeal against the decisions of the
Charity Commission. Nevertheless, a mechanism by which the commission
might be brought before Parliament, perhaps through a Select Committee,
would be desirable. Some of our later amendments reflect that. The
Minister would be wise to reflect on some of the comments that the hon.
Member for Isle of Wight made, except those about the Liberal Democrat
local education authority, and consider, through legislation,
regulation or his advice to the commission, some ways in which such
parliamentary scrutiny might take place.
Edward
Miliband: I am sorry that the amendment tabled by the hon.
Member for Isle of Wight was defective, but I agreed with much of his
speech and with the hon. Member for Cheltenham.
Part of the issue about clause
6 and scrutiny of the Charity Commission is that for a long
time—I am not sure how long—responsibility for charities
lay with the Home Office, and the relevant Select Committee was the
Home Affairs Committee. As I said on Second Reading, the Committee has
a lot on its plate, and charities were never going to be top of its
list of priorities. Others with more experience of this House than
myself will know more about procedure, but I do not think that it is
really up to us to specify in legislation the relationship to the
Select Committee. It is more a matter for Standing Orders.
This legislation is the first
since 1960 to modernise the commission, and the commission recognises
that the role of the modern regulator requires proper scrutiny by this
House. My personal view is that the Public Administration Committee,
which scrutinises other Cabinet Office matters, would provide the
appropriate scrutiny. It is ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member
for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). I wish the clause to stand part of the
Bill, but I shall return and, I hope, report further progress in my
discussions with that Committee.
Helen
Goodman: I have no more experience in this House than my
hon. Friend, but the Charity Commission, as a recipient of public funds
like other regulators, will be scrutinised by the National Audit Office
and the Public Accounts Committee. It is a question of considering not
so much the efficiency, which I hope hon. Members feel that Committee
will deal with adequately, but the policies of the Charity
Commission.
Edward
Miliband: My hon. Friend makes a good point. The only
thing I would say is that the NAO and the PAC have considered the
Charity Commission in the past, but the examinations have been
infrequent—every few years rather than annually or more than
annually. I sense from this Committee a desire for regular scrutiny and
regular Charity Commission appearances before a Select Committee. I
hear what the Committee says, I shall continue discussions with other
Members, and I hope to report progress, if possible, on
Report.
Peter
Bottomley: That is very welcome. The Committee needs to
accept that charities law is now in the hands of a Minister who is not
subject to a Select Committee is a matter of chance. That was not
intended. No one seriously believes that the Government said,
“We will make this arrangement to avoid a Select Committee
taking interest.” The best thing we can do is accept that the
situation is unlikely to continue for very long. We should request
that, when convenient, the Government ensure that charities law goes to
a Secretary of State who is subject to a Select Committee, and where
possible, the commission and the Minister are answerable to this
House.
Edward
Miliband: I am grateful for that intervention. The Charity
Commission has had a hard time today, but my final comment is that I
think that there is a genuine desire in the Charity Commission to be
properly scrutinised in what it is doing. Under the legislation it will
have to submit an annual report to the House, not through the Home
Secretary as was previously the case. I believe that there is a genuine
desire for maximal scrutiny and accountability through the House and I
hope that that can happen through our good
offices. Question
put and agreed
to. Clause 6
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Schedule
1The
Charity
Commission
Martin
Horwood: I beg to move amendment No. 72, in
schedule 1, page 81, line 9, leave
out ‘four’ and insert
‘six’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments:
No. 73, in
schedule 1, page 81, line 23, at
end insert— ‘(d) at least
four members have particular experience of the charitable activity such
as the Secretary of State may by regulations
define.’. Government
amendment No.
57
Martin
Horwood: The previous discussion on the responsibilities
and powers of the Charity Commission is relevant to this provision too.
One of the things that I have noticed, on moving from the charity
sector to Parliament, is that there is a charming belief in this place
that laws always have the right results once they are passed.
[ Interruption.] The more experienced Members do not share that
belief, so I stand corrected. Sometimes, though, I think that when
considering legislation we should introduce mechanisms to make it more
likely that bodies will do what we intend them to do, so that the
representative nature of bodies such as the Charity Commission is
preserved. There is
some disquiet in the voluntary sector about the operation of the
Charity Commission in practice and about the need for it to reflect the
wider population in two important respects. The first such respect is
the increasingly diverse nature of British society. It is probably
unfair to say that the commission reflected
the great and the good in the old-fashioned, traditional charitable
sense, but there is certainly a risk that it does not reflect the full
diversity of modern Britain. If it is considering religious charities,
which may include Islamic charities, Buddhist organisations or others
from a wider range of social and ethnic backgrounds than previously, it
should perhaps be more representative of those communities as
well. The
second important respect is the increasing trend toward representation
of people who have direct experience as beneficiaries of a charity.
That applies in the running of the organisations themselves. There is a
clear trend among grant-giving bodies such as Comic Relief or the Big
Lottery Fund and even Government Departments to insist on evidence that
beneficiaries of charity services or service users are represented in
the running of an organisation, and that would be a good principle to
extend to the Charity Commission itself. I suggested an amendment that
would have made that explicit, but the Clerks pointed out, in ruling it
out of order, that almost everybody could be the beneficiary of some
charity, and that therefore the provision would be rather meaningless,
and I am sure that that might be
right. Amendment No.
72 would increase the minimum number of members of the commission from
four to six, thereby increasing the likelihood of the commission being
a more representative body in both those respects. It would also
incidentally reduce the potential power of the chairman’s
casting vote—a reduction that would be a desirable thing in any
organisation. On a probing basis, I would like to test out the reason
for having such a small number as the minimum number of members of the
commission. Amendment
No. 73 specifically addresses experience of charitable activity. The
original amendment that I drafted was rather more explicit about that
experience being experience as a beneficiary or as a service user, but,
as I explained, that has been ruled out of order. The revised amendment
does what I did not really intend, which is to provide a new broad
power for the Secretary of State. Under most circumstances that is the
kind of thing that I stand up and indignantly oppose, so I am not sure
that I am as enthusiastic about the re-drafted amendment as I was about
my original one. Nevertheless we should take every opportunity to
ensure that members of powerful bodies such as the commission—it
will make rulings on charities rooted in particular communities, social
backgrounds and ethnic origins and representing, for instance, people
with disabilities—should wherever possible have experience of
such services themselves. Ideally, the Charity Commission should
include a person with disabilities and perhaps someone with a different
ethnic background from the majority of its members. That is why I have
proposed the
amendments. 6
pm
Tom
Levitt: By an inadvertent slip of the tongue, I think, the
hon. Gentleman suggested that under the Bill, the commission will have
a minimum of four members. If he looks at the schedule, he will see
that it will have a chairman and four members, so the minimum number
will be five. Although
all of us are potential beneficiaries of charitable services in one
form or another—citizens
advice bureaux, for example, could benefit everyone—is the hon.
Gentleman not stating the obvious by specifying such a measure in his
amendment? No Minister would put forward the names of people who were
not representative or potential beneficiaries. Is he not guilty once
again of the Cheltenham principle in tabling an amendment that is
harmless if not entirely
necessary? Martin
Horwood: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s
great experience in the voluntary sector. The joke is beginning to wear
a little bit thin, though, as we have now heard it four times during
this debate, and I am not sure that it was entirely fair the first
time, let alone the fifth or
sixth. The hon.
Gentleman is correct up to a point, but I am not sure that it is always
automatic that such an exalted body as the Charity Commission will
necessarily represent the interests of users and beneficiaries. It is
sensible and almost inevitable that it will represent people who know
how to run a charity. Such people might be in the old mould and
represent, if I might use a slightly pejorative phrase, the rather
patronising traditional approach to charity as something done to people
rather than something shared with people that empowers them.
We are moving toward a
different understanding of charity that is about empowerment and giving
the users and beneficiaries of charities the right to some say in how
those charities are run. That is the kind of change that I am seeking
to
effect.
The
Chairman: Before we proceed, the Committee should know
that there will shortly be a Division or Divisions in the House. It is
customary to suspend the Committee for 15 minutes after the start of
the Division or the second or final Division, whenever that is. There
will therefore be a period of
suspension. Members
will be gladdened to know that I have told the Government Whip that I
am prepared to sit in the Chair for as long as it takes this evening,
within reason. If Members wish to sit, they may do so. That will be a
matter for negotiation among the Government and Opposition Whips, the
Minister and others. Members may wish to take the opportunity of the
Division to work that
out. I will say to the
Committee, because I believe in making sure that people are aware of
what is going on, that it will in any event be necessary at some point
in the fairly near future for me to break the Committee, probably for
an hour, to allow Committee staff something to eat. With that proviso,
Members may now choose to negotiate their own
positions. Because a
Government amendment is grouped with the amendments, it might be
helpful if I call the Minister to speak to Government amendment No. 57
and then allow the Committee to debate the group. I shall not seek to
restrict debate before I invite other Members to
participate.
Edward
Miliband: The purpose of Government amendment No. 57 is to
maintain the status of the Charity Commission’s staff as civil
servants. Without it,
they might well cease to be so once the Bill is enacted. The amendment
will deal with the effect of an earlier amendment agreed in another
place whose stated intentions were to deal with concerns about the
commission’s independence and to ensure that it was not under
ministerial control.
I am glad to say that the
Government feel that the Charity Commission’s independence has
been made clear through the provisions of new section 1A(4), which
states that, in the exercise of its functions, it should not be subject
to the direction or control of any Minister of the Crown or other
Department. The wording of my amendment would maintain the status of
the Charity Commission’s staff as members of the home civil
service. That is a common provision used in other legislation where
non-ministerial Departments are established, for example, that which
established the Food Standards
Agency.
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