Charities Bill [HL]

I added my name to the amendment tabled by my noble friend because it seemed to me a sensible way to start the debate. If we began with a blank sheet of paper, I very much doubt that we would suggest introducing the system or structure which history has given us. I very much doubt whether we would desire to place 7 per cent of the pupils to be educated in separate schools and in institutions which, in general terms, set fees at a level that only a small section of the public can afford. Choice against such a system would not necessarily be lessened by a programme to call those schools charities because they give benefit to the community. That would not be our first choice. Nor would it be to subsidise those institutions by donations drawn from tax resources, which fall indirectly on everyone. The social demerits of such a divisive system, where, as my   noble friend said, pupils enjoy resources that in most cases are more expensive particularly in teachers and in smaller groups, and where, thinking of my experience, they can be trained and refined to leap over admission gates prepared by tutors in universities, we would think desirable. To move from where we are to a more democratic system of education must necessarily be a long process. The first step suggested here is that ““public benefit””—whatever that will mean—should be tested from time to time against the prevailing system. In the Guardian a month or so ago, my noble friend Lord Hattersley wrote that these proposals, or ones like them, were so moderate that opponents of public schools might worry about the consequences. He said:"““But there is no reason in law or logic why fee-paying education cannot be reduced—with the removal of charity status as a first step—to a level at which its products are no longer influential in society””." No doubt such a process will not be acceptable to many Members of the Committee, but it illustrates what I said on the first amendment today; that, perhaps unfortunately, social policy issues are at the heart of this part of the Charities Bill. It is a pity that the position has to be discussed, as if it were really a debate about charitable purpose, when in fact it is a debate about educational policy. The proposals in my noble friend’s amendment aim, as a first step, to open up the debate on public benefit in respect of the fee-paying educational system, whatever other merits it may have. I hope that as things develop the Charity Commission will see for itself the need to apply the kind of tests which are proposed in the amendments.