Charities Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall have to disappoint the noble Lord. We remain of the view that setting out details of the appeal rights, eligible appellants, and tribunal powers in the way we have done in the table in Schedule 4 is clear and easy to understand, and is the right approach. In addition, we would not usually expect the lay person to refer directly to the legislation for details of appeal rights. Rather, we would expect the commission to provide details of rights of appeal in a leaflet or guidance document designed specifically for charity trustees and the lay person, rather than charity lawyers and other professionals who may be more practised at referring to the legislation directly. One of the concerns that has been mentioned is whether we have missed any particular provisions in this table. We have given the table very careful consideration, but we also have the power for the Secretary of State to amend the table, subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. This provides the flexibility to add, remove, or amend appeal rights. If Members of your Lordships’ House want to draw attention to any particular omissions, we would be very happy to consider those for inclusion. We do not agree that the tribunal’s remit should extend to circumstances where the commission has not made a decision, direction, or order or has unreasonably delayed making a decision. These are matters of maladministration rather than legal decisions, and we believe that the correct process in such circumstances is through the commission’s own complaints procedure, the Independent Complaints Reviewer, and ultimately, of course, the ombudsman. A further practical difficulty would arise if we were to extend the tribunal’s remit to cover the failure of the commission to make a decision. The right of appeal to the tribunal is triggered by an action of the commission—such as the making of an order or direction, or the decision not to make an order or direction. If this were to extend to failure to make decisions, it would be very difficult to establish the point in the time at which an appeal right should be conferred. We have not been persuaded by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. We believe that flexibility is the right approach. If noble Lords can find something that is missing and make a case for it, of course, we shall happily consider its inclusion. If we were to accept this amendment it would mean that a substantial series of amendments would have to be tabled to reflect the point in other parts of the Bill. At this stage I do not look forward to that possibility with any great relish. The flexibility that we have works. It will probably work well and serve us well.