Health Bill

I should like to address Amendment No. 41 principally. As I have said on other occasions, in my professional life I spend a great deal of time advising trustees of their responsibilities in law. Trustees have a great many responsibilities in law—at the last count it was something like 3,500 to 4,000—and they have to ensure that their organisations are compliant with all of them. I support the noble Earl’s amendment in that I assume it is an attempt to provide some clarity. It is important that we should not seek in any way to undermine the principles of charity law. My understanding is that trustees cannot delegate their legal responsibilities in law. They can delegate the management of their organisations but not the legal responsibilities. Therefore, frequently, either by the use of staff or, where organisations do not employ staff, by the use of their procedures and protocols, they ensure that the law is complied with. It is important to establish that that remains the case, not least because many of the facilities we are talking about are used as youth clubs. I would like the Minister to address one point in his response. Frequently, community facilities are not licensed for a number of activities, such as the sale of alcohol or certain forms of entertainment. However, it remains the responsibility of the trustees to ensure that the facility is compliant. To the best of my knowledge, where there is a breach of the law, a bylaw or whatever, a judgment would be exercised by the relevant body—including, ultimately, the Charity Commission—as to whether the abuse was repeated and sustained. If it was not, if it was a one-off that the trustees had done their utmost to prevent and their procedures to do so were reasonable but they had genuinely been unable to prevent the breach, they would not be held to be liable. If, however, the trustees were renting out the premises knowing that laws were being flouted consistently, then trust would be called into question. I seek those assurances principally because I am a passionate advocate of trustees having clarity about their responsibilities and how they should be discharged in practice. That is especially important for small organisations. Secondly, it is important that, in this amendment, we do what the Government are trying to do throughout the Bill, which is by legislation to develop a culture that becomes recognised and accepted. It is possible to do that. It is also possible to do that without recourse to legislation. As someone who lives in London, I remember that in the immediate aftermath of the King’s Cross fire the whole of the London Underground became no smoking, just like that, by announcement. Because people understood the reason for it there was no question about it; it just happened one day and people accepted the new culture. Interestingly—I have listened attentively this afternoon to many of the arguments about the economic impact on the licensed and hospitality trade—earlier this year, with very little notice, a major chain of coffee shops became non-smoking. That has had no affect on its trade. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, indicates that its custom has gone up. It is not possible to say that, but it has not made an appreciable difference to its custom. It is possible to change an established culture. It is important to ensure that trustees know their responsibilities and that people who seek to breach the law understand that they are in danger of jeopardising the future of community facilities. In so far as the amendment tabled by the noble Earl is probing for clarity, I welcome it—but I would not like it to wind up in the Bill.