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Finally, opposition Amendment No. 25 seeks to amend subsection (5) to make it clear that the powers contained in subsection (5),
apply only in relation to subsection (2). This is an unfounded concern, as the whole of subsection (5) can only define the institutions that can be given exemptions or reductions under subsection (2). It has no bearing on the 100 per cent exemption from CIL for charities under subsection (1).
I have gone into some detail: I hope I have not wearied the House. I was challenged to be clear and set out what may be a minority position. I have done my best to show that what we are trying to do is not perverse or stubborn; it is to be as careful as we can in a situation where we cannot predict the future. The fact that we have not been challenged does not mean that we will not have to deal with this issue in future. I would be the last person to put the charitable sector at risk. I hope that the House will accept my amendments and reject the others.
Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this lengthy debate of more than an hour. I will make one comment on the specific point of the noble Lord, Lord Best. My Amendment No. 24 exactly covers the example that he gave of the housing association that is not a charity.
I started out by saying that I wanted clarity with charity and I return to that theme. I do not know whether I am being portrayed as an extremist: I prefer purist. The interesting thing is that there is no difference between what I am proposing for what happens to land that is built upon by a charity, either for itself or for a charitable purpose, and what happens
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On Question, Whether the said Motion (No. 16) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 79; Not-Contents, 157.
Resolved in the negative, and Motion disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendments Nos. 17 to 20 not moved.]
Lord Cameron of Dillington moved Amendment No. 21:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I took the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, which we have just voted on, as being the front-line position and perhaps even as being in no mans land between the opposing forces, as it were. I still believe that Amendment No. 21 and the subsequent Amendment No. 25 are a reasonable last-ditch defensive position for registered charities, bearing in mind that we in this House will have no control over the regulations when they come in.
I should like to comment on the remarks made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Ford and Lady Whitaker, on state aid. I have made these points before, although I have not made them today. Charities in this country are exempt from income tax and they are exempt from capital gains tax, which are huge sums of money hundredfold times greater than the exemption that we are trying to get today. Stamp duty land tax recently gave a full exemption for charities, and I cannot understand why the Government have changed their mind on this particular levy. Council tax has an 80 per cent exemption, and most local authorities give the other 20 per cent. Virtually every other country in Europe, with the notable exception of Sweden, gives roughly similar exemptions to its charities. I do not believe the EU Commission would be politically so insensitive or bring down on its head the wrath of all the charities in Europe, and all those who support themwhich may amount to as much as 50 per cent of the populationby attacking such a small exemption from what is only a local levy, when it has long ignored all the other much larger exemptions. With that in mind, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 21) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 89; Not-Contents, 138.
Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Baroness Andrews moved Amendments Nos. 22 and 23:
23: Clause 209, page 121, line 46, leave out register and insert be registered in the register kept
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 24 and 25 not moved.]
Clause 221 [Regulations and orders: general]:
Lord Jenkin of Roding moved Amendment No. 27:
27: Clause 221, page 130, line 26, at end insert , and
(c) shall not be made unless, before approval by the House of Commons, a period of 60 days has elapsed, beginning with the day on which the regulations were laid.
(3) During the period of 60 days
(a) either House of Parliament may
(i) debate, or pass a resolution relating to, the regulations, or
(ii) refer the regulations to any committee for a report; and
(b) the Secretary of State must respond to any such debate or resolution or to any such report of a committee before the House of Commons gives its approval to the regulations under this section.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, last week noble Lords divided on an amendment that would have given both Houses of Parliament, in our bicameral legislature, the power to approve the regulations to be made under Part 11the CIL regulations, which the House has just debated. The Bill seeks to restrict the power to another place. As a number of noble Lords said in the debate that has just ended, the whole business of CIL depends on regulations. The word regulations appears on every page of Part 11, sometimes
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Of course last weeks vote must be respected. I respect it; I accept that it will be for another placeand that place onlyformally to approve those many regulations. However, I find it surprising that the noble Baroness has taken this line. She has been full of praise for what this House has done to the Bill, including to Part 11, and about the contribution that noble Lords have made. I have in my hands a letter that she sent to me only a few days ago, which states:
I thought the debate was outstanding, and I continue to learn a great deal from the collective wisdom of the House.
That is what we can bring to bear on this matter. The amendment recognises, of course, that the actual approval of the regulations must now rest with another place. We seek to provide opportunities for noble Lords to bring their collective wisdom to bear on the process.
This House has always recognised that certain financial matters are open to the claim of privilege by another place, and I do not seek in any way to challenge that. The purpose of the amendment is to provide, between the tabling of the draft regulations and their approval by another place, time for both Houses to consider them and express their views, and for Ministers to respond. I emphasise both Housesthis House as well as another place. In other words, this House should be consulted, even if we do not have power to approve the regulations. Anyone who listened to the last debate will realise just how much of CIL will depend on the regulations. How much each House might use that opportunity is not for the Bill, of course, but for discussions between the usual channels. The amendment does no more than offer several possible ways of doing it.
If the amendment is carried, as I hope it will be, it will be open to the other place to accept it or redraft it in a form acceptable to parliamentary counsel. Alternatively, another place might choose to draw a distinction between the regulations that bear directly on the charging of CIL and the rest, which are of a more administrative nature. That distinction was made in paragraph 26 of the Delegated Powers Committees report, which referred to matters referred to in certain clauses which are not obviously financial. That must be for another place; it is not open to me to table an amendment to make that distinction. The important point for us this evening is that another place will not be given the chance to decide what to do unless we return the Bill to it with this amendment in it.
What lies behind my concern is the increasing tendency of the other place to regard references to Parliament as meaning the House of Commons only, a point made on the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull. I am sorry that he is not in his place; I drew his attention to the fact that I was going to quote him. He said:
I am beginning to think that the other place has got into the habit of conflating the word Commons and the word Parliament, when they are two different things.[Official Report, 14/10/08; col. 660.]
As I said a moment ago, we are a bicameral legislature and that must never be forgotten. We had a striking example of the tendency with the statistics Act last year. The Act provided that the new statistics authority was to be accountable to Parliament. The Liaison Committee of this House unanimously recommended that that should be via a Joint Committee of both Houses. That was accepted by noble Lords, but Ministers in the other place interpreted the Act to mean accountability to the House of Commons alone. Despite appeals from the then Leader of the Housethe noble Baroness, Lady Ashtonthe proposal by this House was simply rejected. Tonight we have another example.
I accept that it is for the other place to assert its financial privilege, but that should not exclude this House having a role in the consideration of the CIL regulations. There may be honourable and right honourable Members in another place who want further reforms of this House, but that should not lead to the exclusion of this House from any role with respect to the regulations to be made under Part 11. I beg to move.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, the Government have been constructive, through the Minister, in response to many amendments proposed by other Members. However, the response to the issue of the involvement of your Lordships' House in the making of the regulations that will be needed under the Bill has been negative, to say the least. I must make it clear that I do not speak today on behalf of the Delegated Powers Committee, because it has not had an opportunity as a committee to consider the amendment. However, one necessary function of the committee is to see that the rights of your Lordships House are not overlooked or diminished by legislation that the Government propose to introduce. That, I am afraid, is what is happening now.
We should surely start from the presumption that the roles of your Lordships House and of the House of Commons in respect of delegated legislation are equal, subject to the exception of supply Bills and other financial Bills and to the exercise of financial privilege of the House of Commons. I therefore greatly regret the vote last week that resulted in your Lordships House rejecting its own right to claim involvement in the making of statutory instruments. That weakened your Lordships House. It would have been a good thing if new regulations had required resolutions of both Housescertainly in many cases. That is especially so because the secondary legislation gets far less attention in the House of Commons than it does here. The House of Commons has nothing equivalent to the Delegated Powers Committee or the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee. Debates in the House of Commons on statutory instruments are notoriously brief.
We are a revising House. The exercise of our revising powers in recent weeks has shown the importance of these powers, both in this Bill and in others that have
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