Charities Bill [HL]

My Lords, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, is probably one that can be broadly accepted. A purely commercial profit-making organisation should not be regarded as charitable. I do not believe that the Charity Commission would regard such an organisation as charitable even with the Bill in its present state. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has gone further in emphasising the case of Re: Resch, which is part of the common law. The Bill accepts that common law as determining what is in the public interest, unless there is some definition that goes to the contrary. In analysing Lord Wilberforce’s judgment, the noble Lord made the point, for example—I shall not quote all his points—that a fee-paying school is beneficial to the public because it enables the state sector to be relieved of the task of educating those who go to fee-paying schools. That is an unsatisfactory argument to carry forward from this Bill into the indefinite future. The noble Lord is right to say that the Bill in its present state will be regarded in another place as rather astonishing for 2005 and that one wants some more guidance.—I would say more statutory guidance. He has made an attempt to provide some by saying that in consultation the Charity Commission should have regard to the charging policy. Certainly, I do not disagree with that. The charging policy is important because it would indicate to what extent the fee-paying school is catering for a very tiny portion of the population rather than a larger portion, and whether the charges were sometimes reduced for certain numbers of students by bursaries, and so forth. But there are other factors that the Charity Commission or, indeed, the Bill ought to take into account, including the matters on which the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, touched earlier; namely, the extent to which fee-paying schools provide some of their facilities to be available for others in the community and the state sector, including, of course, staff and laboratory facilities, and so forth. So, while I accord with what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has said in his argument, I am not sure that it goes far enough. However, if it would attract wide support here, it is better than nothing. It is better than the very limited way in which the Bill currently deals with public interest, which is to rely entirely on the Charity Commission and, above all, on existing common law, which, as the noble Lord has explained very clearly, is so inadequate.