Charities Bill [HL]

Clearly, the contents of the document would be taken into consideration if there were some form of legal challenge. The commission’s document makes it clear that it can carry out public benefit checks under the Bill as drafted. In describing how it would approach an apparent lack of public benefit in a charity, the commission says:"““Where charities are not delivering public benefit but are able to, our action might include helping the charity change its stated purposes or its activities so that it is benefiting enough of the public to show and demonstrate public benefit. We might also use   our regulatory powers to enforce change if the trustees are not co-operating with us, although we anticipate that we would need to do this in only a few cases . . .  However, in extreme cases where the trustees are co-operating with us but the organisation simply cannot in all the circumstances provide public benefit, our action might include removing the charity from the register and making a legal scheme where necessary to ensure that any charitable assets of the organisation will in the future be applied for other charitable purposes close to any purposes that have ceased to be charitable. This would only happen where it was not possible for an organisation to meet the public benefit requirement””." The commission’s words hold good both for charities that charge fees to people who use their facilities and services and for charities that do not charge. The Government believe, and the Charity Commission accepts, that the Bill, together with the underlying common law on public benefit that the Bill preserves, provides a sound legal basis for the commission to go forward with public benefit checks on all types of charity. I am not sure that the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, would add anything in that respect, since the commission’s ““Legal Principles”” section makes clear that it can already take into account the effect of fee-charging on an organisation’s ability to meet the public benefit requirement. It can already undertake the exercise in the way in which the noble Lord understands under its own terms and the legal principles that are set out in the document. However, I have listened carefully to the points made in the debate. Since the draft Bill was published about a year ago, the Government have shown ourselves willing to respond to the concerns raised in debate by making changes to the provisions in Part 1, of which the requirement on the commission to publish its guidance is one example. Another is the provision requiring charity trustees to have regard to the commission’s guidance where relevant. I am sure that noble Lords would accept that that demonstrates that the Government’s mind has not been closed to sensible adjustments, and we have been praised for that. Many noble Lords’ interventions today will repay closer study on our part, and we of course intend to do that before the Bill returns for the next stage. I cannot at this stage give a commitment that the Government will put forward our own amendment. However, we will continue to set ourselves against anything that   might undermine the adequacy of the legal underpinning for the Charity Commission’s public benefit checks or anything that might fetter its ability to carry them out as an independent regulator on the basis of the flexible and adaptable common law of public benefit. Having heard that, I am rather hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, will feel able to withdraw his amendment. I was not quite clear what the noble Lord, Lord   Swinfen, was getting at. The fees are treated as the income of the charity and would be subject to the ordinary tax regime as it affects charities. I do not think that there is another particular benefit, but if the noble Lord is happy to sharpen and perfect his question, if I cannot answer it today I shall happily write to him, or perhaps we can deal with it at a later stage of the Bill.