Charities Bill [HL]

Just as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, was getting to his feet, temptation in the form of the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, had just come through the door. What he will make of this debate, I do not know, having thought about it before. The proposition made by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that the current threshold be lifted from £5,000 to £10,000 is of course a cunning one because that is the level at which the Strategy Unit made its recommendations in its report—a well chosen threshold indeed. We simply propose £5,000, with the option of registering under that threshold. The majority of evidence submitted to the Joint Committee indicated support for that approach; in fact the Joint Committee’s report mentions evidence from only one charity which supported a threshold of £10,000. During the last series of debates on this I mentioned that raising the threshold would remove a large number of charities from the commission’s scrutiny. This was the   point made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips: the guarantee—or near guarantee—of probity that comes with that and how that may prove to be a disbenefit to charities if they are removed from the obligation. I also said that the regulatory impact on small charities is not   onerous—a point supported by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips—and I think that is true. It was true then and is true now. We can see that there is some merit in raising the threshold to £10,000. But it is not a step we should take without there being full consultation because the figures in the Bill have been consulted on and there has been a broad measure of agreement on them and it would be wrong of us to break that. The Government plan to do a review of all of the thresholds which charities are subject to a year after Royal Assent. That would be a more appropriate time in which to conduct a further consultation as time will have passed. This figure will certainly be included in that review but I would not want to single out one financial threshold in the Bill for change at this stage. I hope that this is a helpful contribution to the debate. I respect the point that the noble Lord, Lord   Swinfen, makes about regulatory burdens but I think in this instance there is more of a benefit in this threshold than a disbenefit and the option is there for us later, after the passage of the legislation, to review the figure and come to a fresh conclusion if that is required.