Charities Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 30:"Page 9, line 8, leave out ““(see subsection (5))””" The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 30 is grouped with an amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. Our amendment is designed to do no more than remove an uncertainty that might otherwise exist in the provisions that the amendment replaces. Our intention has always been that the tribunal should have power to award costs against any party to proceedings that the tribunal believed had acted vexatiously or frivolously or in some way unreasonably. As the present provisions are drafted, we believe that they may be capable of being read as though the tribunal’s power in that respect did not extend to the Charity Commission. We do not want there to be any doubt that the tribunal has the power to award costs against the commission where, as a party to proceedings, it has acted vexatiously, frivolously or unreasonably. We do not want the commission to be put in a special place. Accordingly, we have tabled this amendment to remove any doubt. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, distinguishes between the reasonableness of a Charity Commission decision, direction or order and the reasonableness of the commission’s conduct in reaching that decision. Of course, making a judgment on the former falls squarely within the tribunal’s remit, but on the latter it does not and should not, because essentially it is about whether the commission has properly handled the casework leading up to the decision. As I have said before, that is for the commission’s independent complaints reviewer and/or the Parliamentary Ombudsman to judge. It is a matter of administrative competence, not of law. Even if in a particular case the tribunal found a decision reasonable, it would be perfectly possible for the ombudsman to find the commission guilty of poor administration in reaching that decision—if, say, long delays by the commission in reaching the decision had caused a charity some loss or harm. I believe that the noble Lord will accept that these are two quite separate considerations. I cannot see any merit in extending the tribunal’s remit into the ombudsman’s territory in this duplicative way. I beg to move.