Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
40-59)
MR JON
BENJAMIN, MR
DON HORROCKS,
MR DAVID
POLLOCK, MR
STEPHEN SLACK
AND MS
ANDREA WILLIAMS
12 JUNE 2008
Q40 Paul Flynn: I will have to stop
you because I have a number of questions.
Ms Williams: But those are distortions.
Q41 Paul Flynn: You seemed to make
a point that all religion was benign or all Christian religion
was benign.
Ms Williams: Christianity has
very strong views on the things that you have already mentioned.
Q42 Paul Flynn: Let us take a practical
point of view. You are saying—and I think that you all might
believe this—that children should be taught the ethics from
a Christian basis, but the experience is that many children, after
being taught from that basis, find when they reach the age of
reason, or beyond that, that there is as much truth in what they
have been told of the Christian story as, say, Father Christmas,
and when they reject what they come to regard as myths of Christianity,
is not the danger that they will reject also the ethical education
they have had? Would it not be more reasonable to stop supporting
that teaching and ground children's faith in the David Pollock
idea of their responsibility as human beings rather than believing
in the "mythology" of over 2,000 years ago?
Ms Williams: There is no truth
except the truth that there is no truth. Either there is truth
or there is not truth. Either Christianity is true or it is not.
Moving on, Christians do not seek to impose their beliefs, let
us say, within the education system, but let us take, for instance,
a sort of sexual ethics type of discussion. Teaching children
to abstain from sex outside of marriage: what harm can there be
in that? Only benefit, only good, for them and for the whole of
society—that can only be a good thing. If that was something
that was actually promoted, for instance, and is promoted amongst
some Christian groups with something like the silver ring thing—this
is the nub of some of the issues that you are talking about—how
can that harm a child? We have seen the countervailing philosophy.
I do believe in sex education. I am not saying that I do not,
but the countervailing policy of, let us say, sex education, making
condoms, morning after pills available, all of those things. I
am not saying that that should not happen, I am just saying has
that rendered our current situation better than actually a teaching
which promotes sexual abstinence. There are questions to be asked
there.
Q43 Chairman: On that precise point,
what about the position of contraception?
Ms Williams: Yes. The position
with regard to contraception.
Q44 Chairman: In relation to public
benefit.
Ms Williams: Of course, what would
happen there is that different charities, and different Christian
charities, would probably take different views on that. A very
successful policy that has been run in some African countries
has been the ABC Campaign—abstain, be faithful, use a condom—run
by charities, and that sort of thing has actually happened.
Q45 Paul Flynn: That policy has had
a remarkable effect on the increase in AIDS in that particular
country. I could take that particular policy up with you at some
length and its support and the damage done by the church in Africa
in opposing contraception.
Ms Williams: I did not say it
was opposing it, it was the ABC Campaign.
Q46 Paul Flynn: This comes to the
nub of the problem. You believe in something. I believe a great
majority of people in the country do not believe that sex before
marriage is illegal and, in fact, practise sex before marriage.
Why on earth should that great majority give a financial donation
to you when you support an idea that they do not share? I would
like an answer. You are putting forward views, possibly minority
views. The Catholic Church has a minority view on contraception
that not all of you might share, but you are saying that you should
have a subsidy from the general public who do not share your view.
Ms Williams: What is often happening,
for instance, is that the Christian charities are out on the streets
working with vulnerable teenagers. They are making a real difference
in their life and, as part of the whole of their message, one
facet of their message will be no sex outside marriage, but there
will be love, care.
Paul Flynn: Could you deal with this
one point about contraception?
Chairman: Could we just have one question
and one answer. Let Paul ask the question.
Q47 Paul Flynn: Can we just have
a simple answer. Opposing contraception in Africa, in the opinion
of many people, has led to a wider spread of AIDS. Should that
be supported, subsidised? Is that a good thing?
Ms Williams: I was giving that
as an example, and actually, even in the example it was not opposing
entirely contraception in Africa. If you listened to me in the
fullness of what I was saying, that was not what was actually
being said, and it actually led on from the sexual ethics point
that I was trying to make in terms of where Christians stand on
that.
Q48 Paul Flynn: Mr Benjamin, Youth
Aliyah is a splendid charity that does very good work, but the
beneficiaries are all outside the United Kingdom and they are
not living in a country which is a third-world country such as
Oxfam created. Do you think, again, it is reasonable for the British
taxpayer to support charities who beneficiaries are outside of
the United Kingdom?
Mr Benjamin: That is a very broad
question. The example you gave is perhaps less broad, but, broadly
speaking, yes, where beneficiaries are outside the country, that
should certainly be a recognised charitable endeavour. You mention
Oxfam. One could mention all sorts of charities where the beneficiaries
are overseas. If you are saying that allowing people to pursue
a certain life choice where those people are perhaps from a middle-class
background should be frowned on, or prohibited, you are going
to have to look at it on a case by case basis. I do not know what
Youth Aliyah would say about their activities and how they would
bring them under the public benefit; that is something they will
have to consider and reflect on in relation to the new rules.
Q49 Paul Flynn: Mr Slack, the benefit
of a charitable status is financial. There is no other reason
for having it. Would you say that is the main advantage of it?
I understand that you approached this committee, unlike the Catholics
or the Muslims, to give evidence today because you thought you
should be here. Is it a benefit that is purely financial?
Mr Slack: Just to respond to the
last point, I think the Church of England thought that it might
be helpful to this committee to hear from someone from one of
the largest families of religious charities in the country. But
on that point, no, I think it is unfair to say that charitable
status is simply about financial consequence. Retention of charitable
status is important for religious bodies generally because of
what it says about the value of what they do. That Parliament
recognises the fact that the advancement of religion is potentially
a charitable purpose, and that is something that we should not
lose sight of this morning, is of course inherent, as I said before,
in the retention of the advancement of religion as one of the
heads of charity, but for individual charities actually to have
charitable status, of course, demonstrates that their work continues
to be seen as being for the public benefit in contemporary society,
and in doing so that continues a long and a valued history, since
religious bodies have, of course, been charities ever since the
concept of charity first appeared in English law, unsurprisingly,
given that it did, after all, spring from religious concepts of
duty towards the poor, the sick and the needy.
Mr Benjamin: Can I make an observation
on that? Clearly a huge amount of money is given to charities
every year, and those charities in many cases, by no means all,
undertake work that supports the public sector, that do good work
that otherwise either the Government would do or would be left
undone. So, without having done any kind of analysis or calculation,
clearly to remove charitable status from organisations that are
doing work that is beneficial purely because they do it on the
basis of religious faith would actually leave a rather large hole
in the provision of services and welfare.
Q50 Paul Flynn: I was going to ask
Mr Slack about your ethical policy. The Church of England has
a huge investment portfolio and they have an ethical policy which
used to be—I think it is still the same—that you did
not invest in merchants of death, in the arms industry, unless
their production was less than 30 %. I do not know if this is
still the case, but this is something where there may be ethical
objections by many people in the country because they do not see
that anybody is advancing the work of the principle of peace by
putting money into merchants of death in that way. By giving you
charitable status and financial assistance, are they not subsidising
some of the investments that you make that many people would not
regard as being ethical?
Mr Slack: No, I do not think that
is true at all. The position as regards the Church of England's
investments is dependent upon the duties under charity law and
under trust law of those administering them. What you keep on
coming back to, Mr Flynn, is this issue of detriment. Can I say,
first of all, I would, of course, accept that if there is detriment
from the activities of a religious body, then that should be taken
into account and set against the benefit that is derived from
its activities, but I think the position is perhaps rather more
complex in that respect than you are implying. It seems to me
that there are real potential difficulties in dealing with issues
of alleged detriment which arise from the beliefs of religious
organisations, which is what you were asking about earlier on,
and I would question, in fact, whether beliefs themselves are
likely ever able to represent a detriment. A belief cannot, surely,
cause detriment itself. It might well cause offence, but giving
offence on matters about which there may well be deeply and conscientiously
held views on both sides which those concerned are lawfully entitled
to hold, should surely not be seen in a pluralist society as a
form of detriment; all the more so when the members of the religious
body in question have an unqualified right under Article 9 of
the European Convention to hold those beliefs. Indeed, though
it has not, of course, been tested in the courts yet, I would
have thought that there was an argument that to refuse registration
as a charity to a religious organisation whose activities were
otherwise lawful just because some people took an adverse view
of their beliefs, would be unlawful, because it would involve
discrimination.
Q51 Paul Flynn: There is an organisation
known as Pastafarianism. I do not know if you are familiar with
it. It has been set up in America and they worship a supreme being
who is the flying spaghetti monster. I am will not go into the
details of the religion, but they have established this and their
claim is that there is as much scientific proof of the existence
of the flying spaghetti monster as there is in the belief of creationism,
and they have won certain cases in the American courts. They have
established their credibility, despite the fact that no-one actually
believes in this religion, but it is now recognised as having
that position and could possibly claim charitable status here.
If one is in the position where the beliefs are there, they do
not have to be proved, this has been successful in America in
challenging creationism, which is, again, not accepted by everyone
here, do you think that Pastafarianism or a similar nonsensical
religion should be subsidised in the same way as you are?
Mr Slack: I do not want to talk
about that particular religion, but I think a body of that kind
should not, in my view, receive a subsidy from members of the
public, and I do not believe that it would do so under the guidance
which the Charity Commission has produced: because that says,
amongst other things, that to qualify as a religion there must
be a sincere religious belief system of substance or significance
capable of benefiting society and having a certain level of cogency,
coherence, seriousness and importance.
Q52 Paul Flynn: Can I finish with
Mr Pollock, because the answer has been rather long. What view
would you take of the fact that charitable money—subsidies—is
being paid into compulsory Christian education, like almost all
of us have had, and the basis of that education, often the Christian
belief part of it, does not continue into adulthood? Can you think
of a better alternative there? Do you think it might be damaging
in insisting on giving people a basis of ethics half of which
the whole foundation collapses for many people when they reach
maturity?
Mr Pollock: Yes, broadly I do.
I am not sure quite how close this is to the law on charity, but,
broadly, we do take the view that to tie moral teaching to a religious
belief carries a severe risk that when the religious belief falls
away—and two very large scale surveys have shown that teenagers,
two-thirds of them, are atheist or agnostic, have no religion—then
morality may become questioned, whereas, in fact, morality is
a natural instinct for human kind, it is something we have derived
from our evolution as social animals, it is something that is
found in all religions in all non-religious life stances way back
to ancient Egypt about 4,500 years ago. The golden rule, do as
you would be done by, is found in all of them.
Chairman: I want to bring us back precisely
to charity law, which is what we are about, and remind us that
we have only got about 20 minutes or so left, so if you could
focus questions and focus answers I would be grateful.
Q53 Kelvin Hopkins: I was going to
change the tack somewhat and get away from this rather tense debate
about competing values, and so on. I am something of a sceptic
about the whole idea of charitable status, in other respects as
well, not just the churches and religion. Is there not a problem
in Britain that, because we have charitable status, we have to
define very carefully who can have charitable status and who cannot,
but if charitable status did not exist, then there would not be
a problem and, therefore, we would not have to juggle jelly, as
the Chairman said at the beginning? Would it not be a better way
of doing things to get rid of charitable status and approach things
in an entirely different way?
Ms Williams: We live with it,
so it is historical, and we have it and we have got the Act.
Q54 Chairman: Can I just reinforce
that point to save time. The fact is that the advancement of religion
is a charitable purpose. I think what we have to test is what
the implications of that are, particularly in relation to public
benefit. It may be we would like to rewrite the Charity Act, but
we are not going to do that. I think that is the bit that we really
want to concentrate upon.
Ms Williams: An important point
is the regulation aspect that perhaps has not been mentioned;
that actually one of the benefits of being a charitable organisation
is to do with status, that it is properly regulated, people know
that when they are giving money to it and they have looked at
its charitable purposes that it will be regulated in order that
those purposes are fulfilled. I think historically the Commission
has done a good job on that. It has investigated religious charities
that they have considered not to be doing that. I actually think
that that is an important aspect. That is at least one of the
benefits; that we live with it. One of the benefits of actually
having charitable status, as opposed to being a company or some
other organisation that is set up, is that there is a sense in
which it is independently regulated, and that is a good thing.
Q55 Kelvin Hopkins: If one takes
another example—others have not answered but I will lead
on in what I was going to say—other countries, France for
example, have a very strict separation of the state from beliefs
and religion. In fact they are so fierce that the humanists cannot
get a single penny of state aid in any way at all because the
religions would then claim that they are also entitled. So humanists
are treated exactly the same as religions in France, and yet they
exist, the society is still a very civilised society, it has a
strong sense of values, but they do not have state money going
into religious organisations and nor to the humanists either.
Is that not an alternative way in which we could overcome some
of these problems?
Mr Horrocks: The short answer
to that one, how they do it in France, is they single out the
religions they think they are going to support and then they just
do not bother with the rest. There are plenty of nations in Europe
who actually support churches directly by the state, so I do not
know really whether that is a very good point to be making by
singling out France. I do not think that you can separate contemporary
Britain from what makes it Britain today. What is British is what
has evolved over many centuries. We have got centuries of case
law that has made charity legislation what it is today. It underwent
a very root and branch review with the Cabinet Office, resulting
in the Charities Act, which was then approved by Parliament. My
guess is, if you scrapped all of that and started with a blank
sheet of paper, you would invent the same system. That is my belief.
Mr Slack: Can I add that, if I
am hearing a suggestion or implication that there is some sort
of discrimination as between humanists and other non-religious
belief systems and the advancement of religion, I think I would
want to question that from the charity law point of view. The
fact of the matter is that non-religious belief systems have been
eligible for quite some time for registration as charities and,
effectively, on the same terms as religious bodies in the sense
that there is an issue of public benefit to be met in relation
to both of them. As I understand it, that was why the Government
took the line that it did in relation to the legislation, pointing
out that there would be no question of discrimination. Non-religious
belief systems were capable of obtaining a charitable basis but
just under a different head, and the fact that it is under a different
head does not involve any kind of discrimination. The end result
is the same.
Mr Pollock: We sought to get the
Government to extend the head of advancement of religion to include
advancement of belief. The phrase religion or belief is found
in every human rights instrument. It is found in the Human Rights
Act and it has been interpreted in the European Court of Human
Rights to include non-religious belief systems and we believe
that would be correct. The Government refused to do so without
giving any reason at all, except to say that it was unnecessary,
and we have to accept that that is now the law. What I would like
to say is that the Charity Commission have really in this draft
guidance grappled and failed to deal with the new situation in
this country. First of all, they have failed to deal with the
Human Rights Act, which requires that there should be no separate
and different treatment of religion and non-religious belief systems.
If I could refer you to section six of the Act, which has been
interpreted in the House of Lords in a case three years ago, Lord
Walker said, "It is unnecessary for the House to grapple
with the definition of religion because the European Convention
covers a wider field even the most expansive definition of religion."
So the Commission, in devoting an enormous amount of energy and
ingenuity to trying to derive a definition of religion which meets
modern circumstances, and failing to do so, in our view, I think
has been completely wasting its time. What it needed was a definition
that covered both religious and non-religious belief systems.
Last August we put forward a paper to them, which is annex two
to our comments on this draft on the public benefit of religion,
which I do not believe the Committee has had. If they have not,
we shall have to send it to you. We put forward in a paper in
August last year the view that this was needed, that it was pointless
to look for a definition in terms of the content of the beliefs,
one needed to look to a definition in terms of the function that
the beliefs had for the individuals entertaining them. We think,
therefore, that the Charity Commission in its attempt to define
religion has really created enormous difficulties. The traditional
definition in English law of religion entailed belief in a supreme
being who was worshipped and the belief was advanced. Advancing
does not create all that many difficulties, although we have had
some discussion about it today, but supreme beings are not common
in all religions. Many religions do not have supreme beings. The
Charity Commission agreed that the Scientologists in their ruling
on Scientology had a supreme being because they believed in "the
eighth dynamic", which Scientologists say is "the urge
towards existence as infinity". The Commission were pleased
to agree that that meant they had a supreme being. In this latest
guidance they talk about a transcendental principle as being an
adequate substitute for a supreme being. Worship does not occur
in all religions. Many religions are concerned with the good of
the soul, with attaining nirvana, that sort of thing. That is
not worship. So the Commission talks about something serving as
inspiration to live a better life, which is remarkably unspecific.
In other words, they have had to water down the definition so
far that it is meaningless, and all sorts of things could now
qualify as religions and, therefore, move on to the next test,
which is do they provide public benefit. We think the Commission
have severely misdirected themselves as to the law. We also think,
as I said at the beginning, that they have been remarkably indulgent
towards religion and their draft shows dreadfully confused thinking.
Ms Williams: The joint committee
on the Bill throughout its passage through Parliament said this,
and it really supports what Stephen Slack said: "We do not
believe there is any practical aspect in which humanist charities,
or any other charities whose purposes fall within paragraph (l),
are open to discrimination by comparison with charities whose
purposes fall within the specific heads in paragraphs (a) to (k)."
When an amendment was put forward through the passage of the Bill
to add belief, it was rejected by Parliament. So, again, in what
we have and what we are dealing with, it is quite clear that religion
is to be a charitable head, a unique charitable head, and in order
to understand what that means, again the Commission has been quite
clear, and, indeed, Parliament has been clear, that we need to
look at the case law.
Q56 Kelvin Hopkins: To come to my
point, if we got rid of the charitable status concept, we would
not have to have all these definitions, all these problems with
wording and whether or not the great spaghetti monster is involved
and so on. We could actually have direct grants to organisations
doing good public work. So if you set up a childcare organisation,
you could apply for a public grant, like any other organisation,
become another part of the third sector which applies for many
of them, and get money from the local authority or wherever. Then
you do not encounter this problem of having to have a definition.
So the belief, in a sense—worship and whatever people believe
in—is one thing, the good works, which are publicly beneficial,
are then separate and funded by the state.
Mr Benjamin: I think that is where
we are now with the new Act and the new requirements. Obviously
it is a recognition of what has gone before for centuries of charity
law. Your suggestion would still entail guidelines for people
to understand what would constitute good public works, how to
frame their applications and how to fall within a different remit.
You mentioned before that the state pay charities. In fact what
happens is simply the state does not get money that individuals
donate to charities through gift-aid and so on, it just means
the tax does not go to the Government, it goes to the charity.
Perhaps it is a semantic point as to whether the state is paying
or the state is simply not getting as much money as it might do,
but the charities subjected to this public benefit test will now
have to satisfy certain requirements that, I think, would exist
even if they were funded in a different way, and yet they can
carry on as they are; and people understand what charities are
about, if they open their wallets and make a donation they appreciate
where the money is going, and I think it is a huge incentive for
people to do that, that they are giving to a charity that is regulated
not only by the law but with the oversight of the Charity Commission,
and essentially that, I suspect, more than compensates for the
amount of money that the Government does not get in tax but, instead,
goes to charities.
Q57 Mr Liddell-Grainger: I think
all of you, other than possibly David, work overseas. One of the
things that interests me is when you are advancing Christianity,
whatever your religion may be, through charities and here you
are in countries which may not be predominantly of the persuasion
that you are trying to persuade, how can you rectify that between
what you are trying to do to expand religion using a charity base
to do so in overseas countries? Do you find that problem? The
reason I ask this is because my mother works for a religious organisation
overseas. She is a Christian in an Islamic country. She is trying
to further Christianity, but she has come across situations where
people have pushed their religion in countries. I suspect this
has happened. Do you find there is a problem under the Charities
Act where you may be trying to expand Christianity for the right
reasons but with the wrong system?
Mr Benjamin: I can give you a
very quick answer. We do not proselytise, we do not seek converts
at all. There are Jewish charities, World Jewish Relief and others,
that have contributed to the Chinese earthquake fund and the Burma
cyclone, but they are doing so, I suspect, under an entirely different
head, not the advancement of religion.
Q58 Mr Liddell-Grainger: There are
Jewish communities, I think, in the Sudan and elsewhere, are there
not?
Mr Benjamin: They must be very
small communities in the Sudan—Ethiopa.
Q59 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Do you help
them to further their ambitions?
Mr Benjamin: Again, World Jewish
Relief I mentioned before, who find small---. Very often there
are small Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union, but these
are Jews and people who come to the charity for assistance, and
we will provide them with food parcels, perhaps during Passover,
the particular type of food that they have to eat at that particular
time of the year, but these are members of the community already,
they are not sought to be persuaded or converted. Very often it
is a very light hand on the tiller in order to help people. There
is no hint of forcing religion on them. I do not think the people
out there are pushing religion in that way, and that is why I
suspect that we are not actually talking about this head of charitable
endeavour really.
Ms Williams: Christianity believes
that Christianity changes the whole of you, body, mind, spirit,
everything that you do, and actually being changed spiritually
is a good thing. We as human beings are body, mind and spirit.
There is a spiritual aspect to us, to every single one of us,
and in a sense what we do with Christianity, the message of Christianity
is one of the defining things about us. So someone like your mother
is obviously there seeking to further Christianity in another
place. What my organisation does, it is a lawyers' organisation
and in countries, in Uganda, in Kenya, where there is not access
to justice, where prisoners have been incarcerated for years,
for months, because they have been accused of stealing bread,
we have set up a legal aid system there, we have got regular interns
there that help these prisoners get access to justice. This is
exciting work. Also they go into prisons and they do hold services
in the prisons, prisoners do get given bibles, prisoners do give
their lives to Christ. So there is actually a spiritual change
in them too, which I think is an exciting thing.
|
