My Lords, first, I should like to say how good it is to see the other Lord Wallace—my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire—back in his place on the Front Bench having, I hope, had restorative attention.
In Committee, there was a long debate on this amendment, which has a simple purpose: to remove charities altogether from both the Bill and PPERA 2000. I am bound to say that in the intervening period there has been a great deal of discussion, meetings and lobbying. It is fair to say that the dear old charity sector
—which must be one of the slowest of any sector in our society to get the hang of things, while being a most invaluable element in our society—is now showing its support, late in the day, for the proposal that charities are taken right out of the Bill. It is a pity that this movement did not show itself a good deal earlier.
I must also explain that in Committee there were three different supporting names on this amendment: my noble friends Lady Williams, Lord Tyler and Lord Greaves. They—how shall I put it?—stood back at this stage of the Bill to enable Peers from other parts of the House to put their names to an amendment which is felt strongly about. It is a great resource and support to have the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Low of Dalston, on the amendment. They are, respectively, an ex-Lord Chancellor, an ex-chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and an ex-chief executive of the Royal National Institute of the Blind.
We have put this amendment forward today and continue to feel really strongly about it because we are convinced that to draw charities into this net is counterproductive, legally illogical, because they are the subject of a completely separate and rigorous branch of law in a way that no other NGOs are, and wasteful of scarce and valuable volunteer time and philanthropic resources if we persist in so doing. I shall address only a few points. I am very mindful of the time and my colleagues will deal with different points relating to the amendment and its consequences.
The one word that keeps coming back to me in relation to all this is “practical”—or, in this case, “impractical”. It seems a thoroughly impractical proposal to lump charities in with NGOs, which can range right across the board from being relatively public-spirited—as, for example, most of the supporters of the Harris commission certainly are—to completely self-interested NGOs, some of them acting as fronts for commercial organisations and others with political aspirations. The one thing you know for certain and beyond peradventure about a charity is that it exists exclusively for the public benefit. Private benefit and charity are wholly incompatible dimensions.
This branch of our law is not some Johnny-come-lately or some rather weak branch of law, if I may put it that way; it is about as fiercely and strongly embedded in our culture as any aspect of law. What is more, the Charity Commission, which has been doing its job for more than 150 years, is a committed body with vast experience, though admittedly with inadequate resources, which is there to try to police this extraordinary sector. Extraordinary it is because it actually needs wonderfully little policing. The amount of fraud and—how shall I put it?—manipulation in the charity sector is a tribute to the best in British society and culture.
The duty on us as legislators, when touching on this sector in particular, is to act with extreme caution because one can so easily damage that which one hopes to assist. Above all, we need to avoid confusion in the legislation that we shower on the British public. There is one way of avoiding confusion in the issue of the regulation of NGOs: to avoid shackling charities of all organisations with duplicatory regulation and
thus the responsibility for two sets of regulations and indeed regulators. Of all the groups in our society that surely do not need that, above all others by far are charities. Although of course the Bill is vital and it is good that amendments have been introduced—we thank the Government for being so receptive—it is important that we retain our civic vitality, which, let us be honest, is languishing somewhat. However, in the process, we must not damage that which we seek to uphold.
The confusion surrounding charities in relation to the Bill is quite extraordinary. I can illustrate that by referring the House to the letter written last night by the Charity Commission to a number of us now in the Chamber. It deals in particular with this amendment because the Charity Commission considers it of such importance. I confess that many of us have been trying for some considerable while to get the Charity Commission to come out of its shell and be clear about what it thinks of the arguments advanced on each side of this debate. At least now we have a letter, written by the public affairs manager of the Charity Commission at 6.30 pm last night. Pretty early this morning, as one might guess, I was on the telephone to seek clarification.
The letter has four paragraphs. Can one ask Peers to put up their hands if they have had this letter? It is probably unprecedented, but I have seen one, anyhow. I suspect that a minority of those here have seen this letter and that it will be helpful to quote from it. It is important given that the Charity Commission is the kingpin in this field. The first point that it makes in relation to this amendment is under the heading “Charity law and electoral law—the current situation”. It states:
“Charities must never support political parties or candidates for election”.
That is the basic premise. It continues:
“A charity can engage in campaigning to influence public policy but only in the context of supporting the delivery of its charitable purposes. We recognise that there are some circumstances where a charity’s activities can adhere to charity law but may still require them to register with the Electoral Commission during an election period”.
I have to be honest. I was slightly crestfallen when I saw that because my proposition hitherto has been that charity law and election law in this bit of the landscape are so similar as to be no different from each other. I argued this with the senior member of the commission who is fielding calls in relation to this letter and after a while, she said, “Well, perhaps we did not put this as we intended”. It then became apparent that when the Charity Commission made this statement it was talking about the law as it stands now, not the law as it will be after the Bill is enacted.