Charities Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 58:"Page 113, line 27, leave out ““gross income or total expenditure of the charity”” and insert ““charity’s gross income””" The noble Lord said: This amendment was wrongly grouped with the earlier grouping. At that point, I said that I would speak to it briefly. Amendment No. 58 modifies the provisions of the 1993 Act requiring a charity set up as a CIO to submit an annual report. Currently, the financial threshold separating charities that have to submit annual reports from those that do not has both an income and an expenditure test, which is the key point. Elsewhere in charity law, there are thresholds that, like this one, have both an income and an expenditure test. For example, the audit threshold requires a charity to have its accounts audited if either its income or its expenditure is above the prescribed level. To simplify audit thresholds, we decided to do away with expenditure tests so that, once the Bill was enacted, a charity’s expenditure would be irrelevant to decisions on whether its accounts were to be audited. On balance, we think that it is sensible to carry that   simplification through to other thresholds that have both an income and an expenditure test. The amendment, therefore, abolishes the expenditure test in the annual report threshold as it applies to charities set up as CIOs. Amendments Nos. 75 and 76 were also wrongly included in the earlier group and make similar provision for charities generally. I hope that that clears up that slight mystery. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to. Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to. Clauses 33 to 37 agreed to. Clause 38 [Power to transfer all property]: