Charities Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 8: Page 4, line 24, at end insert ““unless and until it registers as such, in which event it shall cease automatically to be a registered sports club”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, the amendment seeks to make life easy for a registered sports club that wishes to convert to a charity. The addition of the words in Amendment No. 8 would allow that to happen in the simplest and most direct way and simply provides that a registered sports club remains a registered sports club unless and until it registers as a charity,"““in which event it shall cease automatically to be a registered sports club””." That sounds a little arcane, but registered sports clubs are a relatively new class of quasi charity. They have all the benefits of a charity except one particular tax advantage, but they are not charities. That is important in terms of them not coming under the purview of the Charity Commission, which is the point of subsection (4). A small number of registered sports clubs want to become charities and this is the simplest way of allowing that; it makes everything automatic. Although in Committee the Minister said that there could be tax disadvantages, there would be no tax disadvantages in a registered sports club becoming a charity. Any deemed transfer of its assets to the charity would attract no capital gains tax or other taxes. I beg to move.