Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-20
Topic: Housing
Dianne Hayter (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 7 stands in my name and those of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester and the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Palmer of Childs Hill. The amendment is about the rights and the duties of independent charities which hold in trust various assets for their beneficiaries, both today and in perpetuity. Charitable law, which dates from Elizabethan times, developed to preserve and protect such assets, which are normally bequeathed or gifted for very specific charitable purposes. There are therefore rules covering the disposal of assets and the role and responsibilities of trustees, all with the same aim—to ensure that a charity’s resources are spent only on the purposes laid down in its trust deed and in compliance with fiduciary and charitable law. Amendment 7 essentially restates the existing legal position and aims to give comfort to charity trustees that they cannot, without a change in the law, be compelled to sell assets where it is contrary to their charitable purpose We are not against the right to buy. Indeed, it was only because of the then GLC, which gave 100% mortgages to single women, and on converted premises, that I was able to move from renting to buying. I have had a letter from the CLG Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, saying that her party supported home ownership, implying that my party does not, but I take no lessons from any other party on this. Right to buy has helped many, but so did MIRAS, better regulation of mortgages, the end of the pernicious mis-selling of endowment mortgages and the setting up of the estate agent ombudsmen—all of which took place, of course, under a Labour Government. Many other interventions help people get into the housing market, but we do not want the right to buy to be at the expense of the charitable aims of those charities which, for example, have been donated land, money or property for a specific purpose, whether it is to help house the elderly or rural workers or to rent to low-income families or other particular categories of beneficiary The National Housing Federation worries that forcing trustees to sell property, even if they are fully compensated financially, sets a dangerous precedent for government intervention in independent charities. It does not support giving government a role which should be the preserve of housing associations’ own charitable trustees. Similarly, the NCVO says: "It would also contradict the rule according to which charities cannot dispose of assets … other than in pursuit of charitable objectives"— that is, the use of such assets, "for charitable, rather than political or private benefit" There are other charitable concerns about the policy, such as whether any bequests could be invalidated in the circumstance of a forced sale. There are particular worries where a charity holds designated land that is required by the terms of a gift to be used to carry out the charity’s purposes and where such land cannot be replaced by other appropriate property or land. That could be the case where a charity holds a house once owned by a particular local figure or associated with a former convent or an almshouse sponsor.