Charities Act 2006 (Changes in Exempt Charities) Order 2010

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness for presenting the orders, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for his contribution, which I have been trying to bottom and fathom—I have some difficulties. Nevertheless, he has ferreted away at his concerns, and it is right that we try to understand them to see if they can be answered. From what he said, I am not certain about the specific disaster that he sees occurring because of the proposed changes. I reiterate things as I see them. Clearly, we are being presented with two different types of charity. There is the registered charity, which, as everyone knows, has the Charity Commission umbrella. That umbrella gives comfort to trustees of charities. They know year by year, or when they make any requests of the Charity Commission, that they are on the right lines—assuming that they are. It also gives comfort to everyone else in the land to know that that umbrella is there. We then have the exempt charities. The reason that we are here is that they have not had that umbrella. Under the regulations, they will be lent the Charity Commission umbrella. The Charity Commission will take it back unto itself only if there are severe problems that need real investigation. Movement between the regimes is clearly suggested in the instruments, but the result is that exempt charities will be regulated with only one relationship. It seems to me that having only the one relationship with the Secretary of State, rather than also having an additional relationship, ought to be helpful and simplifying. I have a specific question. Under the regulations is the role of the responsible person, who is the new regulator. Can the Minister confirm that the only new responsibilities of that responsible person are to cover the Charity Commission-type responsibilities, and that they do not bring with them any further form of interference that the trustees may not welcome? I listened carefully to the noble Viscount talk about the organisations and friends he belonged to. I should have thought that they would be under the Charity Commission. It seems to me that no one would be in that position unless there was a present relationship with the department. They have no other business to be there. The reason is that the department has a relationship with them, and it is sensible to lend to them the Charity Commissioner’s relationship so that there is not another set of relationships, further accounts to be sent in, and so on. It is important that the regulations are agreed, in the sense that it is always important for the public to understand that charities are properly and clearly regulated. We only need one hiccup with a charity to affect other charities which have nothing to do with it with regard to the confidence that people have when giving money to charities and having a real understanding as to what charitable activity is. I believe, therefore, that these regulations will give further comfort in that the charitable sector—both the exempt and the registered charities—has the formal backstop of the Charity Commission, and I am happy to support the measures that have been put forward today.