Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, we move on to the issue of social investment, one which we spent considerable time deliberating in Grand Committee. During those discussions, the Minister repeatedly used the phrase, "dancing on the head of a pin". I am not much of a dancer, and I return to this not to rehearse the arguments that we had then but for what I think is a really important reason. As we said in Grand Committee, this is the first time that social investment has ever been defined in law. The extent to which trustees are acting properly if they make an investment on which they will not receive a financial return is a question on which, as we heard in Grand Committee, there are a number of different points of view. I simply want us once again to go around the question of the difference between financially motivated investment which happens to be in line with the charity’s social purpose and consciously, explicitly socially motivated investment. The reason for doing so is risk. There is a strong possibility, at least for the first few years of any such investment, that there will be, at best, no return and there may even be losses. It is crucial that we protect in law the trustees who are making such investments. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and I made the point in Grand Committee that the definition of social investment in the Bill does not reflect the definition given by the Law Commission. The Law Commission’s definition of social investment includes "avoiding financial liability at a future date". It was, therefore, somewhat difficult for the noble Lord and I to learn during Grand Committee that the Law Commission had helped with the Bill’s drafting. The Law Commission’s definition does not require there to be a positive financial return. That is what it said in its initial report on social investment. However, the Bill includes financial return in the definition. At new Section 292A(5), it defines financial return as, "if its outcome is better for the charity in financial terms than expending the whole of the funds or other property in question" The amendments in this group would add "equal to". The amendments would allow trustees to make an investment on which there would be simply a social return. There may be a financial return—as opposed to a definite loss, which would be what a grant would amount to—but there may not be. We on these Benches think it important to make that distinction The definition in the Bill fails to differentiate between financially motivated investment and consciously, explicitly social investment. That is why we have tabled the amendments, which are slightly different from those which were tabled in Grand Committee. They would require trustees to be open in their investment policy about the fact that they were making social investments, not seeking to make a financial gain but directly trying to achieve a social purpose. As long as they did that and were not harming the capital assets of the charity by completely depleting them, we think that broad definition of social investment would get us to a point where trustees, who are very risk averse under existing law, could begin to develop the whole social investment market. That is what this Government, like the previous Government, have said that they wish to do, but which has so far been constrained by law. That is the reason behind Amendment 20 and all the other amendments in the group. I beg to move.