Peter
Bottomley: Will the Minister write to the Committee
explaining in slightly more detail why that is
so?
Edward
Miliband: It would require rather more than a letter, I
fear, but I shall add it to the
list. Question put
and agreed
to. Clause 43
ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Clause
44Merger
of
charities Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Peter
Bottomley: I think I am right in saying that it is not one
of the purposes of the Charity Commission to encourage mergers. In my
opinion, that is the correct position for the commission to take, but I
think that those of us who are involved in charities and interested in
their work should encourage mergers, and I hope that all
charities—whether incorporated or unincorporated—will
find ways of joining together, whether as a true marriage of equals or
with one becoming a restricted fund within an existing
charity. As a trustee,
I am conscious of the responsibility to keep down administrative costs
and I hope that those running the charities, both trustees and staff,
can devote an increasing amount of their time to the purposes for which
the charities exist rather than to the maintenance of the charity
itself. If in 10 years’ time we had half the number of charities
in this country, I expect that they would be achieving more in terms of
their charitable
purposes.
Edward
Miliband: As always, the hon. Member for Worthing, West
speaks wise words. The clause does not only create a new register of
charity mergers, but, hopefully, it will enable mergers to take place
more easily with the pre-merger vesting declaration, which is a device
to enable the automatic transfer from one charity to another of many
types of property that need to be transferred during a merger. I hope
that the clause will stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed
to. Clause 44
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
45Regulation
of public charitable
collections 6.15
pm
Martin
Horwood: I beg to move amendmentNo. 144, page 53,
line 20, at end
insert— ‘it does not include
a charitable appeal which is made on private
property;’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 45,
page 54, line 22, at end
add— ‘(8) Nothing in this or
any other legislation shall permit a condition to be attached to the
permission for a public collection which prevents the collectors from
shaking their collecting
tins— (a) between the
hours of 8am and 6pm; or (b)
at other times unless it can be demonstrated that the shaking
of tins is likely to cause a public
nuisance.’. No.
130, page 54, line 22, at end
insert— ‘(8) Persons making
a public charitable collection shall be allowed to shake or rattle
collection tins or
vessels.’. No.
145, in
clause 49, page 56, line 16, at
end insert ‘, and (c)
ensure that all collectors carry photographic identity badges
in a form approved for this purpose by the local
authority.’. No.
150, in
clause 60, page 65, line 41, leave
out paragraph (b). No.
143, in clause 60, page 65, leave out line
42 and insert ‘a day
which, when taken with the day on which that other collection is
already so authorised, would result in collections being undertaken in
that locality more frequently than once every other
day.’. No. 46,
in
clause 63, page 68, line 24, at
end insert ‘excluding local
collections;’.
Peter
Bottomley: On a point of order, Mrs. Humble. Have you had
any indication of how far the usual channels think we ought to get this
evening?
The
Chairman: That is not a point of order for the Chair. I
call Martin
Horwood.
Martin
Horwood: Amendment No. 144 would introduce a new provision
in clause 45, which concerns the regulation of public charitable
collections. I am aware that it is a mildly contentious clause for
Committee members and many other MPs, because it touches on the
practice referred to on Second Reading as
chugging—charities’ ability to raise sometimes vital
funds not through traditional forms of charitable appeal or by shaking
tins but by making appeals for standing orders and direct debits in
public without some of the restrictions applying to traditional
charitable collections. The Bill rightly proposes a range of amendments
to fundraising rules that will bring such fundraising under proper
regulation by law and, on many occasions, by local authorities.
However, there is a risk that by being too enthusiastic in our
regulatory zeal, we might impose undue restrictions on charities that
would damage the income that we all want to go to their
beneficiaries.
Clause 45 contains one such
unduly restrictive measure. As I read it, the clause restricts
collections defined as public charitable collections under subsection
(2). Public collections are those
made “(i) in
any public place,
or (ii) by means of
visits to houses or business premises (or
both)”. So far, so good,
but the problem lies with the definition of “public”. A
public place is defined in subsection (6)(b) as
“any other place to which, at any
time when the appeal is made, members of the public have or are
permitted to have access and which
either— (i) is
not within a building,
or (ii) if within a
building, is a public area within any station, airport or shopping
precinct or any other similar public
area.” That
will take us into an extraordinary situation. For instance—to
quote an example that was familiar to me a few years ago—if the
Alzheimer’s Society agrees with Tesco that charitable
collections will take place on Tesco premises, which are Tesco’s
private property, the society will have to seek the local
authority’s permission and obtain a permit to do so. The
conditions will apply because the collection will be in a public place
as defined by the
Bill.
Peter
Bottomley: Has the hon. Gentleman taken advice on whether
being on the premises of the shop is different from being within a
shopping
precinct?
Martin
Horwood: I have not, but I assume that the shop would not
be covered by the broader definition of “public place” in
subsection (6). However, a shopping precinct clearly would be. Perhaps
Tesco was a bad example, although Tesco and large supermarkets have
equivalent public areas. However, if the proprietors of a shopping
precinct agree with a charity that collection is to take place and the
arrangement has been made between those two private parties, I cannot
see that it is the law’s job to step in and say that extra
conditions should apply.
James
Duddridge: By way of example, there is an area in my
constituency, Victoria plaza, that has a public right of way through
it. If a private citizen passed through it to go shopping, he would
still pass through a right of way. Surely, it should be considered a
public area, rather than foisting the private views of that particular
property holder upon the individuals wandering
through.
Martin
Horwood: The views of the Conservative Party on private
property seem to be
developing.
Alun
Michael: It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman is
developing as a protector of the rights of private property owners.
Does he not agree that the general public would apply a common-sense
approach to what a public open space is—somewhere that is open
to general access to the public? The question of who owns the land over
which the public are walking is often fairly academic to
people.
Martin
Horwood: The right hon. Gentleman says that common sense
should apply. However, common
sense should say, if a reasonable arrangement has been made between a
charity and the owner of a private shopping precinct and there is no
likely objection to that from members of the public because it is not
of a nature to obstruct the public, that the private owner of that
property and the private charity should have the rights to make that
arrangement. The real effect of the provision will not be to stop the
collection either way, but to impose an extraordinary administrative
burden in the form of permit collections from the local
authority.
Alun
Michael: The hon. Gentleman used an interesting
phrase—if the public have no “likely
objection”—but surely they have elected representatives
in the local authority to make that judgment. They have no way of
expressing an objection or support to private property owners of those
public open spaces that happen to be privately
owned.
Martin
Horwood: The public have every means of expressing their
discontent. They can withdraw their custom, their donations or both.
Those sanctions are available to them.
By way of background, I would
say that when I was a fundraising director, the number of complaints
about telephone marketing was relatively high, but there were very few
complaints about public, charitable collections because they are the
easiest thing in the world to avoid. People can simply walk past and
not give. That is the same in the case of shaking tins as it is with
giving direct debits or standing orders.
The amendment would prevent an
onerous administrative burden from being placed on charities. We have
to remember the net effect of these things. This is not a cost-free
exercise. If the administrative burden will be as bad as I think that
it will be, it will result in fewer donations and consequently less
income to the very causes that we are trying to support with the Bill.
Therefore, it is a serious amendment and I would like the
Minister’s response to
it. On amendment
No.145, I was puzzled to find it listed under clause 45 because it is
an amendment to clause 49, which is several pages later on page 56.
That should not be interpreted as any change in the broad Liberal
Democrat scepticism about the carrying of identity badges. In the case
of people who call door to door, well established guidance from the
police and others says that those carrying out official business or
business that is recognised by law should carry photographic identity
badges wherever possible. This is an opportunity to reinforce that
point. One of my
concerns about the reputation of the charitable sector is that it is
being impinged upon by collectors who purport to be charitable but are
actually running a variety of either commercial operations or ones that
are even less reputable than commercial operations. Those are intended,
on occasion, to defraud householders of their money. That seems a real
threat and I am concerned about it. Locking in the idea of photographic
identity badges at this point seems a good
opportunity.
Tom
Levitt: The hon. Gentleman will recall that I raised this
matter in my speech on Second Reading. My
hon. Friend the Minister said that he thought that the requirement for
carrying identity cards on door-to-door collections was not being
changed by the Bill. Therefore it was not necessary to put it in.
However, I would be interested to hear his specific response to this
amendment. The
amendment would require the badge to be approved by the local
authority. However, if the badge is connected with a collection
certificate issued by the Charity Commission and if one of the purposes
of that is to allow an organisation such as Oxfam only to have to apply
for one collection certificate for the whole country, would it not be
more appropriate for the badge design to be linked to the collection
certificate from the Charity Commission, rather than having individual
badges from individual local
authorities?
Martin
Horwood: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point,
which I am happy to accept. Had I been able to move the amendment, I
would have been content to withdraw it on that basis, as he has
suggested a significant improvement. I commend his thoughts to the
Minister. Amendment
No. 150 would amend clause 60. The clause is well intentioned, but
there is an onerous restriction—albeit possibly an inadvertent
one—that could be placed on public charitable collections. The
Institute of Fundraising has raised a concern about that restriction
with me and possibly also with other Committee members. Clause 60(2)(b)
provides for possible restriction by local authorities of public
collections when it is proposed to conduct such a
collection “on a day on
which that other collection is already so authorised, or on the day
falling immediately before, or immediately after, any such
day.” Let us
imagine the practical impact of that. There is a seven-day week, and
Sunday is a day on which public charitable collections rarely take
place, so there are really six days at people’s disposal. The
local authority might authorise a collection on a Tuesday and then
choose to restrict collections on either side of that day, thereby
ruling out Mondays and Wednesdays. There might then be an application
for a collection on a Friday, following which the local authority might
choose to rule out collections on a Thursday and a Saturday. In effect,
the local authority would then have reduced the opportunity for public
collections to two days in the week, which is rather less than was
intended. The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association has raised
concern about that, and I believe that the Institute of Public
Fundraising has done so too. I look forward to hearing the remarks of
the hon. Member for Isle of Wight on the other
amendments.
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