I think that the concern may relate to a misnomer, which is that a non-charitable NGO that wants to escape the limitations of the Bill could simply form a charity which, if charities are taken out of the Bill, would be able to do all sorts of things that it could not do as a non-charity within the Bill. There is a very simple answer to that. A charity may be the brainchild of, and have come into existence through the efforts of, a non-charitable NGO—and there are a number of non-charitable NGOs, such as Amnesty International, which have brought into being a charitable arm that does things that can properly be done by a charity and which is therefore more tax efficient to have done through a charity, because of the tax provisions attaching to charities. A number of non-charitable NGOs have a related charity—perhaps even the Countryside Commission has. Many of them do it. But the misunderstanding comes in this element. Some people think that because Amnesty and the Countryside Commission took the initiative in creating a charity, they can control it and tell the trustees to do their bidding, what to do and when to do it. But they cannot. It is a fierce rule of charity trusteeship that the trustees of any charity do not and cannot take their orders from any outside body, even one that is in that sort of relationship.
To take another example, where I, as an individual, set up a charity with funds that I provide, unless there is some express power which I retain to require the trustees to make charitable gifts as I indicate, I cannot tell them what to do. The trustees must act independently. It is a fierce and fundamental provision of charity law, precisely to protect it from prostitution by the means that I think was behind the noble and learned Lord’s question.
9.15 pm