Charities Bill [HL]

We have had this debate on two or three occasions, and my response will not be terribly different from what it has been in the past. I rest on these points. First, as I said last time, it is open to those who are concerned and aggrieved to publish their own account. Secondly, if they are trustees, those persons will have had the opportunity to provide evidence in detail to the commission on the conduct of its inquiry. Thirdly, the commission will usually, as a matter of course, invite comments on the report being prepared, so there is an opportunity to go over any factual matters that might be in dispute. In the end, we must accept that the commission has a job to do. It is the regulator. It is there to regulate and pass judgment. Sometimes, people will be aggrieved by those judgments, but that is its purpose. In the end, it is there to protect the public interest and the public good. For the most part, I am sure, the commission gets it right. There will be occasions where its judgments are questioned, but we must have confidence that the commission will operate in the public interest in the way in which its responsibilities are set out. Although the noble Lord makes an important point about those affected having the opportunity to make representations, I cannot accept that that difference of view need be reflected in a balanced way by appending the charity’s judgment of the circumstances in which it finds itself to the commission’s official inquiry report. To do so would, in some ways, put those making such representations in a rather elevated position. The regulator is there to regulate. We should enable it to get on with that job and to express a view when it has conducted a proper inquiry. The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, and I are just not going to agree on this one. I invite him to think with some care about what I have said before he comes back at a later stage. It is one of those issues where we cannot make any further moves in the noble Lord’s direction.