Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
1-19)
MR JON
BENJAMIN, MR
DON HORROCKS,
MR DAVID
POLLOCK, MR
STEPHEN SLACK
AND MS
ANDREA WILLIAMS
12 JUNE 2008
Q1 Chairman: Let me extend a very warm
welcome to our witnesses, as we have to call them, this morning.
It is very good of you to come along to help us. As you know,
one of the effects of the Charities Act 2006, which Parliament
passed, was that charities are required to provide a public benefit
to maintain their charitable status, and the Charity Commission
has the task of trying to explain what this means. We, in turn,
having some responsibility for the Charity Commission, are interested
in looking at how they are going about that task and, finally,
the opportunity for Parliament to share in that discussion as
well. We have now had these consultation papers issued on various
areas of public benefit work and we are doing some hearings on
this. This is the first of these and we are very grateful to you
for coming along. There are quite a few of you and, therefore,
I cannot, as I would normally do if there were one or two people,
ask you all to make statements. I hope you do not mind if we dispense
with that. What I would like to ask to start with is how is this
impacting upon religious organisations: the development of a public
benefit test by the Charity Commission in relation to religion
and the falling away of the presumption that religion by itself
is a charitable activity? It would be very good to hear how you
are feeling this. Do you want to start at the end, Don Horrocks?
Mr Horrocks: Good morning. Certainly
from the Evangelical Alliance's perspective, we welcome the whole
project. Why should it be a problem having to justify why religion
or belief is of benefit to the public. That has been the stance
we have taken throughout the whole project from the inception
of the Charities Act. Obviously, how it works and impacts at the
grassroots level is important, and we have got concerns and questions
about how that will actually happen, but we think that, in the
main, it is manageable and, provided that everybody listens and
gives space and recognises each other, it is a perfectly manageable
proposition, and so we have been fairly supportive of the concept.
Q2 Chairman: I am going to come back
to David Pollock at the end, if I may. That would be the natural
thing to do. Stephen Slack, from the Church of England.
Mr Slack: Good morning, Chairman.
I think, left to ourselves, we would not have sought the removal
of the presumption of public benefit, which we thought was a sensible
way of avoiding putting the bodies to which it applied to the
trouble of demonstrating something that was not in practice really
an issue, but the Government made it clear that it wished to change
the position and we could see that there was some logic to that
if it were to be removed in relation to the other heads of charity
so that all the heads were subject to the same rules; and, of
course, the Government not only made it plain by retaining the
advancement of religion as a separate head of charity in its own
right, it accepted that religious bodies could, in principle,
exist for the public benefit, but it also gave express assurances
that, in practice, the great majority of them would continue to
be accepted as being for the public benefit and so entitled to
charitable status, and we were very happy with that, but that
is not all that there is to say, I think, because there is a potential
down side here in the form of regulatory burden. Granted that
the position has changed, we would not wish the new need to demonstrate
public benefit to lead to unjustified bureaucracy which stifled
voluntary endeavour. The advantage of the presumption, as I said,
is that it absolved everyone from the need to demonstrate routinely
what was generally accepted whilst allowing issues of public benefit
to be tested where there were real concerns about that. So, now,
if benefit has to be proved in all cases, we think it important
that the processes should be relatively light-touch and straightforward
for people to apply, and we will be looking at the position in
that respect very carefully as it develops to ensure that that
objective is achieved.
Q3 Chairman: So regulatory burden
is the issue. Jon Benjamin, from the Board of Deputies of British
Jews.
Mr Benjamin: I actually chair
something called the Chief Executives Forum, which, as the name
suggests, includes chief executives of a number of charities,
and we have disseminated the consultations and word of what is
happening in relation to the new Act and the public benefit requirements.
Obviously, people are comfortable the law has changed, they need
to fall into line, and it really is a matter of the methodology
and understanding now what they have to do. Assurances were given
by, I think, Ed Miliband during parliamentary debates—he
said no charity is going to find itself, following the day of
enactment of the new Act, losing its charitable status—but,
of course, we do need to understand what is required of the charities.
I think in the guidelines that were produced last year, on which
we consulted and made a submission, and now the consultations
that are out at the moment, you can actually trace some development
and a sort of sensitivity and understanding of the concerns that
we have had. In fact, reading through the consultation on advancement
of religion, I smiled to myself this weekend, because I recognised
that some things that I had actually suggested and was very pleased
that they are in there. Stephen's point about establishing some
of the basic principles, I think, would perhaps fall away if the
guidelines make this clear to trustees. Of course, the guidelines
are just that, they are not definitive, they are guidelines, but,
equally, they should provide sensible guidance. If trustees understand
that there are certain accepted principles, there are certain
accepted features of what they are doing and that they are not
going to need to prove every year in infinite detail as coming
under the head of charity. Obviously, there is the existing head
of the advancement of religion, and we are comfortable with that,
but we have to understand the parameters of what the public benefit
test requires. Again, the concerns, being a smallish community,
particularly coming out of some of the language of the draft guidelines
from last year, which I think has been addressed, talked about
what is meant by "the public", and we know that it can
be, obviously, sections of the public. But, for example, it suggested
that a subsection of a subsection would make the ability of a
charity to fall within the requirement more difficult. So what
immediately occurred to us is Jewish people are a subsection,
but Jewish blind and disabled, or Hindus with Hindu children with
learning difficulties, or whatever it might be, would suggest,
on the wording of the guidelines, that the charity is perhaps
moving away from being able to fulfil the public benefit test.
If that kind of thing is addressed with as much clarity as possible,
then clearly we will work within the framework.
Q4 Chairman: Thank you for that.
Andrea Williams, from the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship.
Ms Williams: Good morning, Chairman.
I adopt and endorse what has been said by Stephen Slack with regard
to this. It is interesting to note that when the McNaughton Rules
were uttered in court back in 1891 setting out the three heads
of charity—the relief of poverty, the advancement of religion
and the advancement of education—of course we were then
operating within a society where Christianity was the religion
of the country, and in setting that down, when it talked about
advancement of religion, there was an accepted consensus within
society that that is, indeed, what was being promoted and that
it was for the benefit of society, and what we were seeing in
terms of many of the charities that were there existing was the
reality of that. I believe that throughout the decades since that
time, in the advancement of religion, Christian charities have
given a great deal to society; so it is in many ways a shame to
lose the presumption of public benefit. However, I do believe
that it will be good for many Christian charities to demonstrate
the great public benefit that they do, and they will have no difficulty
in showing the many good works and the benefit that there is to
society as a result of what it is that they do. Of course, where
there may be some difficulty is not so much when the churches
and the Christian charities are doing the many good works such
as the mothers and toddlers groups, the homeless work, helping
aids orphans, those obvious social justice sorts of things, but
rather when the balancing of benefit, the detrimental harm test,
will begin to be applied and with issues with regard to proselytising
and, perhaps, sometimes where orthodox Christian views are increasingly
within society not necessarily viewed as a benefit. We will continue
to argue, of course, that such views are of benefit to society,
but it may be that perhaps in seeking to attain charitable status
certain Christian charities might encounter difficulty because
of their orthodox views on sexual ethics, let us say, or the uniqueness
of Christ or when it comes to straight proselytism. So there are
going to be some issues potentially raised there. It is an issue
of where it is going to bite.
Q5 Chairman: Are you saying at the
end there that, in your view, the advancement of some religions
or some religious tenets do not have public benefit?
Ms Williams: I believe absolutely
that following Christianity and our laws historically being rooted
in Christianity has public benefit. Historically the public good
has been viewed as rooted in Christianity, and there has been,
essentially, a common consensus on that. In the last 20 years
we have moved radically away from that. I continue to believe
that views on sexual ethics that are rooted in Judaeo-Christian
teaching are good and wholly for the benefit of society, and society
would be better if it followed that, but it may be viewed by others—
Q6 Chairman: Nobody is talking about
Christian religions, I am asking you whether you think there are
some religious positions, the advancement of which, is not for
the public benefit?
Ms Williams: I represent the Lawyers'
Christian Fellowship, and I would say that with regard to Christianity
there can be nothing that would not be for the advancement of
benefit to society when it comes to the Christian faith, and that
is proved the world over, historically, and in the legal systems
that we have seen across the world and, indeed, in our own.
Q7 Chairman: We will return, I am
sure, to the issues. Can I bring in David Pollock from the British
Humanist Association? This must be fascinating to you because,
as I understand it, you think that, far from producing public
benefit, these people are spreading obfuscation and irrationalism,
do you not?
Mr Pollock: In some of their activities,
Chairman, yes, but let me make our position plain. We are very
far from failing to recognise the great benefits that many religious
charities provide to the public. We would be the last to claim
that. We disagree with the basic beliefs of the religions; they
disagree with our basic beliefs. We live in an open society, we
have to get along together and, so long as there is fairness between
parties, we are happy with that. What I would like to say about
the Charity Commission's draft guidance on public benefit as regards
religious charities is, first, in our view, the Commission has
misdirected itself as to the law by ignoring the implications
of the Human Rights Act, secondly, that they have proved in their
draft remarkably indulgent towards religion in ways that one would
not have expected given their general guidance and analysis of
the law from last year and early this year and, thirdly, that
the draft is confused, muddled and ambiguous.
Q8 Chairman: Certainly, reading all
these documents, I thought it was like juggling with jelly when
trying to bring religion under the orbit of this public benefit
test, but I am glad that at least some of you find it easier than
I do. Tell me, first of all, why is it important that religious
organisations should be charitable anyway? Why does it matter?
Mr Pollock: Money.
Q9 Chairman: Perhaps we should ask
them. Would it matter?
Mr Horrocks: Historically religion
and belief has been treated as charitable for centuries, because
religion and belief has been seen, historically, as part of the
fabric of society, what actually gives civilisation its framework,
its existence base, makes relationality in public work. That may
have been more true a few 100 years ago than some people may think
it is today, but organisations that devoted themselves to furthering
that ideal, that the human race could improve itself through religion
and belief, were supported by the public dimension of any means
it could find through the financial system to encourage that and,
at the end of the day, much work that goes on in the name of religion
and belief, as, indeed, goes on in the name of human rights, education
and anything else, comes down to how do you finance it. The UK
traditionally has encouraged religion and belief by providing
an environment in which finance is available, and charitable status
is a key component of that.
Q10 Chairman: For all the other areas
that are charitable purposes, they have a concrete character to
them. It is easy to understand what the welfare of animals is,
for example, or educational activity. It is much less easy to
be able to pin these things down in relation to religion, is it
not?
Mr Horrocks: I would take issue
with that. If you were talking 30, 40, 50 years ago, no-one would
have found it difficult to understand what spiritual benefit was.
We live in a society now where there is a huge degree of religious
illiteracy in public and government, at least that is our experience
of it, and if somebody can gain charitable status, quoting the
Act, by having good feelings from attending sick animals, surely
it is not difficult to translate that to people having good feelings
from praying and worshipping together. I do not find a problem
with understanding that.
Q11 Chairman: It is not having good
feelings about treating sick animals, it is treating sick animals.
Mr Horrocks: The actual wording
of the legislation talks about the feelings that it gives or the
feeling of appreciation of art. We do not have a problem with
recognising that. Why would we have one with religion and belief?
Q12 Chairman: We need a lawyer.
Ms Williams: The foreword from
the Charity Commission on the draft supplementary guidance says
this, "Religious belief and faith has, by its nature, both
personal and public dimensions. In relation to public benefit,
it is the public dimension that is of primary concern. Among many
other things, religion helps to provide a moral and ethical framework
for people to live by and can play an important part in building
social capital and community cohesion." What you find from
people such as myself is that believing in Christianity actually
affects the whole compass of my life, and it will do to the many
adherents that are in this country. So, in terms of the way in
which citizens respond and what they seek to do, faith will have
an immense impact. The defining law on it, in terms of religion
and how it is defined in law, comes from the 1931 case Keren
Kayemeth, and Lord Haworth (and I can give you the reference
later if you want it) says, "The promotion of spiritual teaching
in a wide sense, and the maintenance of the doctrines on which
it rests, and the observances that serve to promote and manifest
it." So that is, there, how he talks about the animating
purpose of religion, and it is interesting to note that across
the nations religion is something that is recognised: the primacy
of religion is recognised within societies. For instance, in the
United States the First Amendment protects the free exercise of
religion, and the animating purpose of Article 9 in the European
Convention is the protection, ultimately, of religious freedom.
So it is not just a belief in, let us say, a political party or
in a way of being, it is actually something that affects the whole
of a person, every aspect of a person, and it is that which historically
constitutions have sought to protect and which, we have seen,
radically changes and alters the fabric of society.
Chairman: The protection of religious
belief is a different proposition from the advancement of religion
as a charitable activity. These are different propositions. Let
me bring in some colleagues and we will explore this further.
Q13 Paul Rowen: Could you tell me
what you mean by advancing religion, apart from getting new followers?
Mr Slack: As I understand it,
the fact that charitable status is conferred on the advancement
of religion is intended to ensure that it is not afforded to the
more private practise of religion or the promotion of personal
piety, as it were, but in a way that does benefit the public more
clearly. So religion is not advanced in the eyes of the law when
someone kneels down by their bed and says their prayers, as Lord
Denning once famously said. It is about promoting the religion
in a wide sense, that is to say, maintaining its doctrines and
its observances, and that can be done in a variety of ways which
can be described as both pastoral and missionary, and there are
a number of examples of the way that it can be done in practice
set out on pages 17 to 19 of the Commission's draft guidance.
Mr Benjamin: As far as the Jewish
religion is concerned, it is a religion that is based on laws,
on texts, and I am not saying this is not true of other religions,
but it is very much about a way of life, an ethical code. Indeed,
good codes exist amongst people of different faiths or no faith,
but, speaking only for the Jewish religion, that is what it is
about: everything from the moment when you get up, what you eat,
which cutlery you use, if you keep kosher, how you treat other
people, how you treat animals, the environment. As I say, these
things can exist outside a religious context, but I do not think
you can uncouple that from people's faith. When you talk about
devotional prayers that include references to peace and the environment
and charity, one of the most fundamental things at certain times
of the year for Jews is, as a devotional act, to give charity.
I think you cannot separate those. In terms of what the advancement
of religion means—and we have touched on things like conversion
and proselytising—Judaism is certainly not a proselytising
religion. We have read very carefully the draft consultations
and all the text around this to understand what is included, and
it is not simply prayer. We have actually advocated—as I
say, I think it has found its way into the draft consultation—other
devotional acts such as care for the sick. There is one instance
in here, that I suspect came from me, which is about staying with
a deceased's person's body because that is a religious requirement,
but it also gives comfort to the family knowing that their loved
one is not just abandoned in a morgue. As I say, charitable acts,
all sorts of things that I think you would recognise, but they
very often come under different heads in the new law and in the
old law. So there is that to some extent, some charities may wonder
which particular heading they come under, and maybe it does not
matter as long as they can demonstrate that they are providing
a public benefit. It is more than simply kneeling by one's bed
and praying but, equally, the praying cannot be separated from
everything else.
Mr Horrocks: I would endorse the
idea that advancement of religion is getting at the public dimension
of religion. Christianity is a public religion. In my book it
is not a private thing that one does without any reference to
the world in which we live. It is to be worked out, lived out
in the world, and that has been recognised by the history of case
law. Any private, closed orders of religion have generally not
achieved charitable status. So, one of the clear aspects of advancement
of religion relates to its public dimension, which includes recommending
its claims on the lives' of individuals to improve, edify, human
beings.
Ms Williams: In terms of how that
might practically work out, I will give a personal example of
my own church life. I live in Lindfield in West Sussex, or Haywards
Heath, just on the edge of the village of Lindfield. I go to a
regular Anglican parish church, which has probably between 400
and 600 people that come through on a Sunday, but throughout the
week there is an old people's home that is run by people that
are in the church—that is a charity—a small priest
school that is run by the church, mothers and toddlers groups.
Amongst the network of Christians within the Lindfield area there
are soup kitchens that run down to Brighton, there is youth work
that reaches out to the local youth. These are all out workings
of faith, certainly, and doing good works, and certainly the advancement
of religion. The case that we would generally go back to as the
anchor of how to define religion is United Grand Lodge of Freemasons
in England and Wales [1957]. Mr Justice Donovan said, "To
advance religion means to promote it, to spread its message ever
wider among mankind; to take some positive steps to sustain and
increase religious belief", and, of course, this is outworked
in all the ways that I have just told you that my church does
so during the week and but also in actually speaking the message
of the Christian gospel.
Q14 Chairman: My understanding, though,
from what I have read, correct me if I am wrong, is that you do
not have to do good works in order to qualify for charitable status;
you simply have to advance religion, which may not involve good
works, it may simply involve worship of various kinds. Am I not
right?
Mr Horrocks: That is true.
Q15 Paul Rowen: Amongst the list
on page 17 to 19, it does quote the maintenance of religious stained-glass
windows or the maintenance of public churchyards. You mentioned
staying with a dead body. How is that advancing religion?
Mr Slack: It is reflecting and
giving effect to the beliefs of the religion, and I think the
argument in terms of its public benefit is that it is contributing
indirectly towards the public benefit which is derived from the
wider practice of the religion in a more general way. The law
of charity takes full account of benefits which are generated
indirectly, as it were. For example, if you set up a rest home
for nurses to give them some respite from the duties of their
work, then that would be seen as being indirectly for the public
benefit because it will help them to go back to their work and
do it more efficiently and effectively having been refreshed.
I think there are a number of particular religious purposes which
have always been accepted as good ones in law which can be seen
as charitable on that sort of basis; that they are contributing
towards the wider public benefit generated by the practice of
the religion more generally.
Q16 Paul Rowen: I accept that point—that
is good in itself and you could perhaps be registered as a charity
for doing that—but that does not advance religion. How does
looking after someone who is ill or running soup kitchens of itself
advance religion?
Mr Benjamin: I think it is a matter
of motivation. As I said, we would be in a bit of a state if only
people of faith did these things, though, clearly, that is not
the case; but there are certain people who are motivated by faith,
by love of God or fear of God or the love of one's fellow man,
who will do these things and who will be inspired to do them because
of their faith. Obviously, one has to provide a space, be it a
temple, or a synagogue, or a church for them to practise their
faith for them then to accept the wider principles that relate
to that. In the Jewish religion there are some very basic principles.
There are 13 principles of faith: the acceptance of one God, and
so on, but that does not get you terribly far unless you start
looking further into the text and the religious injunctions and
so forth, the 613 laws, good deeds that one is supposed to do,
and that obviously casts a much wider net in terms of social interaction
and good works, but it is founded on the religion and you cannot,
as I say, uncouple the two.
Mr Pollock: As far as advancement
is concerned, one must remember that many things can advance a
religion which are not necessarily for the public benefit. The
public benefit test is a separate one from the advancement test.
The saying of masses advances religion; it may not be for public
benefit. Saying special prayers for a year after the death of
a person, presumably, is seen to advance religion. I cannot see
any public benefit whatever in it. So we have to keep those two
ideas separate. As far as the general question is concerned, humanists
find it odd and regrettable that religious people generally seem
to wish to do their charitable works in special huddles under
a label of their religion rather than joining the general charities,
which is what humanists do. We do not want to go off in into a
huddle and do things under the name of humanism, we just do it
as people. That said, this is the motivation of many religious
people. I remember when I was at Oxford, Trevor Huddleston, whom
we all admired at that time for his work in South Africa, came
to the University and said that if he was not a Christian he could
think of no reason whatever why he should do what he was doing,
which reduced him, in my eyes, very much, but that is the way
that some religious people are. We have to remember also that
not all religions are concerned about doing good works; some are
concerned solely about the preservation of the soul of the person,
with attaining nirvana, disengaging from the world, and the law
has to deal with all these.
Q17 Chairman: Should the advancement
of humanism be a charitable cause?
Mr Pollock: Humanism is accepted
by the law as charitable, or humanist charities are accepted as
charitable, but not for advancing humanism, only for some other
cause under the fourth head.
Q18 Chairman: The question would
be: why not then have that as the test for religious organisations
too? Not the advancement itself, but something that comes out
of it.
Mr Pollock: We should welcome
that.
Mr Horrocks: I am interested to
hear David's pleading for humanism. It is the only belief system
whose followers do not call themselves by the name humanist. They
generally claim to represent everyone who is not religious and,
in fact, it is an interesting discussion David and I have had
over the years. Their claim would be to actually not advance religion
and belief; so we are coming at it from a totally different perspective.
The fact is that religion does not claim exclusivity in making
a positive contribution to society. What it does claim is that
it motivates a disproportionate contribution to the well-being
of society, and that has been demonstrated and continues to be
demonstrated in all kinds of ways. The recent survey in Wales,
for example, by GWYNI actually quantified the contribution of
Christians in Wales in economic terms and showed that in actual
fact its contribution in economic terms was £102 million
to the Welsh economy and that activities organised by faith communities
to serve their local communities were delivered by over 42,000
volunteers, which represents a very substantial percentage of
the volunteering community. I quote that as one example where
there is objective evidence to show that the motivation of a religious
belief actually does deliver community benefit. As you indicate,
it does not have to do that, but generally it does do that. There
will be a little church somewhere out in the sticks where the
congregation consists of half a dozen elderly people who are beyond
actually being able to got out and run soup kitchens, but it,
nevertheless, exists for their benefit, which is why we believe
the fact that usage takes place is benefit itself. Measure the
public benefit by the fact that people use it and benefit from
it by their involvement.
Q19 Paul Rowen: What is the difference
between a religion and a cult?
Mr Horrocks: You are asking me
that question?
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