Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-12-03
Topic: Mixed Topics
Susan Elan Jones (Labour, Centre-left): It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate on this Bill. I want to make a few points. I think many people welcome the fact that the Government are taking action to prevent individuals who are unfit to become charity trustees from doing so and are tackling abuse and mismanagement of charities more effectively. However, I have a few questions over some details There is widespread agreement across the voluntary sector and among the general public—this very much recognises what the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) said—about the problem with predatory fundraising when it is done in an unethical way. It is good that the sector itself is coming forward with the idea of a fundraising preference service. That will be very important It is worth bearing in mind, however, that across England and Wales there are 943,000 trustees, and we in this House bear some responsibility for making sure we do not scare them to death with regulation. The bulk of charities in this country are not like Kids Company, which appears to have got away with a remarkable amount. We are talking about people who give up their time to serve on management committees, often when they do not have much time to give up. We do not always do that well in the diversity of trustees. I think the average age is 57, and only about one in 200 is between the ages of 16 and 24, so I would be reluctant to do anything that scares off too many people. However, there is a case for returning to the proposal suggested a few years ago by Lord Hodgson for time limits—for larger charities only; it would be ridiculous for the village hall committee and many smaller management groups. I hope that can be considered during the Bill’s passage I have a couple of other small points. Members have already suggested that clause 1 gives the commission an absolute discretion to publish an official warning to a wider audience. However, charities depend heavily on funding and reputational matters, so if there is no real right to appeal against a warning and no minimum notice period, that needs to be looked at The issue with clause 11, which centres on the power to disqualify from being a trustee, relates to clarity. We agree in principle that, if there is genuine abuse, it is important that such a power can be used. On clear cases, there is a question about whether the amount of discretion available is too wide; many of us agree that that needs to be defined much more clearly. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) raised the issue of past behaviour in her extensive speech I welcome the Bill. It is part of the consideration of how charities develop in the modern world, but we have to be careful. It is so easy for us to add new regulations that frighten charities, especially smaller charities, from doing their work. Often, charities start off very small. For example, Your Space in Black Park in my constituency started off very small, but it has now become a state-of-the-art charity working with children and young people with autism. Such things often begin from little acorns, but we must not smother the little acorns with too many regulations. I am not sure whether it is possible to smother little acorns, but if it is possible I do not think we should do it Although I broadly welcome the Bill, we need to look at some of those details. In the last Parliament, the Government made changes following the Committee stage of the Small Charitable Donations Act 2012. I hope we can debate at a later stage the issues I have raised.