Charities Bill [HL]

I put my name down to this amendment to add my support. As we all know—or at any rate, as those who took part in the Grand Committee on the Bill before the election will know—the Government have since then sought to broaden the meaning of the vital phrase ““the advancement of religion”” in the Bill by stating in the present drafting, which is different from before, that religion includes:"““(i) a religion which involves belief in more than one god, and""““(ii) a religion which does not involve belief in god””." I welcome that to some extent, but I do not welcome the fact that the only belief that is specifically recognised is religious belief. The word ““belief”” appears twice in the amended version, but only in the context of the word ““religion””. That is clear to all of us. What is created for the advancement of non-religious systems, philosophies of belief or ethics should also be recognised as charitable, provided that they are for the public benefit, because one must establish those two points. I particularly wish to mention the reference in Amendment No. 4 to the Equality Act 2005—which is a Bill at present, but we anticipate that it will be passed. It is provided because Part 2 of the Equality Bill forbids discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief. Clause 45 of the Equality Bill very simply defines ““religion”” as ““any religion””. It goes on to define the word ““belief”” as,"““any religious or philosophical belief””," and adds,"““a reference to belief includes a reference to lack of belief””." I favour the great simplicity of those phrases in the Equality Bill. It seems to me to be very odd, in two Bills that are likely to be passed in the same parliamentary Session, that one expressly recognises ““belief”” only if it is a religious belief and the other expressly recognises the significance of both religious and non-religious beliefs. I could refer to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights but my noble friend Lord Wedderburn has already done so. I could also refer to the employment regulations 2003 in which religion or belief means,"““any religious belief or similar philosophical belief””." It may be said, and I believe has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, in his intervention—I hope he will speak further—that indirectly this Charities Bill recognises as charitable a body set up to advance non-religious beliefs by virtue of Clause 2(4)(a). That refers to current case law. As I understand it, current case law allows as charitable those bodies that are set up to improve the mental or moral welfare of the community, which is pretty broad. It is said that the Charity Commission must follow existing case law, but that can be so only because since the nineteenth century—let alone more   recently—the courts have been imaginative under the residuary head of charity described by Lord Macnaghten in the leading case of Pemsel in 1891 as,"““other purposes beneficial to the community””." Clause 2 of the Bill—this was also in the version of the Bill that we had before the general election—no longer prescribes the three well known specific purposes of charity that have been with us since the seventeenth century; namely, the relief of poverty, the advancement of religion and the advancement of education, and then a general clause. As Members of the Committee can see from Clause 2, we now have another eight specific heads of charity added on to those three. I shall not read them out as they are in the Bill. My point is, as no doubt the Committee will have anticipated, why not expand slightly the head of charity ““the advancement of religion”” by adding the words ““or belief”” or have a separate specific head similar to that which my noble friend Lady Turner of Camden wants to discuss under an amendment soon to be moved? If we had a slight expansion of the head of the advancement of religion to cover belief more generally as proposed in this amendment, the amendment would be very simple. It would help many of those who may be puzzled when they look at this Act, as it will be shortly, and wonder what is allowed as charitable and what is not. In years to come that would assist the endeavours of many bodies.