My Lords, as the Minister will recall, I had the privilege of chairing the Joint Committee that conducted pre-legislative examination of what was then called the Protection of Charities Bill. I cast my mind back to a year ago, when our committee was still sitting and considering the terms of our report. It is a pleasure to see some members of my committee in the House this afternoon. It is against that background that I pay my own tribute to the Minister and his Bill team for bringing the Bill to this stage: we are now truly at the last lap. One of our main concerns was that there should be no delay in the legislation we were examining. It is a great pleasure to see that matters have been taken this far forward with the changes made.
The only amendment I wish to comment on—I do not want to arouse too much controversy about this—is Amendment 2. I listened with great care to what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, said and I appreciate the concern on the point she mentioned. However, the one feature I stress is that we did not as a committee have the chance to examine Clause 9. As the noble Lord said, that was introduced to the Bill on Report. It is the kind of clause that, speaking for myself, we would have wanted to examine with great care because of not only its implications on the point that the noble Baroness made but also its width. It is completely unqualified. If it had been more precisely targeted, we might have been a little more inclined to support it. I rather suspect that a clause as general as this would impose a very great burden on the Charity Commission. To a large extent, because of the protection of charity law generally, the clause would not be needed. I stress that I speak only for myself but I am relieved, against the background of what I have mentioned and having heard the Minister explain the reasons for it, that this amendment has come forward. I very much support it. My main point in rising to speak at all was to express my thanks and appreciation for the fact that we are now at this stage, in effect bringing the matter to an end.