My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Minister on getting his first piece of legislation through to its conclusion. I thank him also for the way in which he took us through the amendments today.
I will concentrate initially on one aspect of these amendments that has not so far been discussed: Amendments 3, 4 and 5, dealing with matters to do with the rehabilitation of offenders. I and other members of the committee had great sympathy with the case made to us by the charity Unlock about the problems that this Bill would pose particularly for charities that specialise in the rehabilitation of offenders. Their great concern was that up to approximately 50,000 people in this country with past convictions would find themselves
now unable to take part in the process of being a trustee, even though they had committed those offences some considerable time ago and had managed to rehabilitate themselves. Last week in court there was a ruling on the matter of the severity of minor offences and their duration in relation to people having to make declarations. I rather suspect that, if that judgment is upheld, this legislation will have to be revisited fairly swiftly. I simply draw that to noble Lords’ attention.
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On the matter of fundraising regulation, I wish the noble Lord, Lord Grade, well. He is about to live in very interesting times, as they say in the Chinese proverb. I say that not least because I went to an academic lecture last week about public perceptions of fundraising in charities, and the noble Lord will not be surprised at all to know that the great British public, as represented in focus groups, are all thoroughly in favour of charities having their fundraising activities absolutely and thoroughly regulated—but they do not want to see them paying any money for that, because they would like all their charitable donations to go direct to beneficiaries. So on the one hand I wish him well, but when the chips are down about who pays for the services of his inestimable organisation, he may well have an interesting time, as do all regulators. None the less, this is a right response to what happened last summer. It will need to be kept under review. I look forward to seeing the Charity Commission having the appropriate responses to deal with this and the fallout from Kids Company, as referred to in the committee’s report last week.