Charities Bill [HL]

My Lords, we have been around this particular issue in the past. I recognise that the Government have made substantial steps to even out the balance which exists in those new and fairly draconian powers. The Law Society among others circulated amendments which, in large measure, the Government have now accepted. Having had the preview—the trailer before the main feature, so to speak—I accept the problem about the Charity Commission’s staff knowing who the occupier is. However, I would have thought that some of that would have been obviated by the fact that we are talking about entry in respect of premises where the operations of the particular charity take place, and therefore that charity either has directors if it is a company or trustees if it is not a company. Serving a notice on them might be a way around that problem. My difficulty is with:"““If required to do so””," which my amendment seeks to leave out. The problem is with exactly who has to do the requiring? Must it be someone on the premises? Can it be done by phone, fax or e-mail? Should it not be an automatic requirement for the commission to have to give a copy to somebody connected with the charity, whose premises it is presumably entering to examine or investigate? One of the troubles is that these powers cover domestic as well as business premises. As we have heard from many noble Lords during our debates, many charities are run from trustees’ homes. Faced with a search, which by its very nature will be abrupt and sudden and may well be of his or her home, what concerns me is how an unsophisticated trustee will know that he or she is entitled to ask for such a record. I was hoping that the Minister would be able to find some way through this, except for the difficulty he has perfectly fairly posed—that in the event of the occupier not being clear, the commission would have to serve the notice on an official of the charity in question, such as a director or trustee. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has talked about small, local charities. Such people are unsophisticated and will not know their rights. This is going to be a pretty brutal occasion where the door is opened and people come to look through the house, and I doubt if they will know that they can ask for these particular documents. Excepting the practical difficulty that the Minister has quite rightly drawn to our attention, I hope that he will find a way at least to make sure that some official of the charity which is being investigated—be it a trustee or director—will have to get a copy of what has gone on, as provided by new Section 31A(6). That will be a good way to get round the problem with difficulties of identification that the Minister has drawn to our attention.