Charities Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 62:"After Clause 26, insert the following new clause—"    ““RIGHT OF REPLY TO INQUIRY REPORTS    After section 8(6)(b) of the 1993 Act insert— ““(c)   all persons and organisations referred to in a report which is to be published must be invited on 28 days notice to sign their agreement with the report or alternatively to submit a dissenting opinion which must be published as an appendix with the report, and no agreement or dissenting opinion or lack of them shall be taken into account by the Commission or the court in deciding whether a trustee subject to an order removing him as a trustee shall be re-instated.”””” The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of the amendment is to require the Charity Commission to publish with its inquiry reports the agreement or otherwise of the affected parties. The proposal is necessary because the commission’s reports are often very one-sided and leave a burning sense of injustice in the people referred to in the reports, giving them no opportunity to refute unbalanced information. In too many of the commission’s cases, the victims have suffered unjust treatment and then have had to further suffer a one-sided account published on the Charity Commission’s much-visited website where it remains, I understand, for two years. On 12 July, at col. 1054 of Hansard, I quoted the Minister as saying that anyone affected by an inquiry is free to publish his own account of it however he wishes. That is of course true, but I do not believe that it is good enough. The Minister also said that maligned trustees would already have had the opportunity to put evidence to the commission during an inquiry. So they would, but that does not help them to feel better if the commission publishes a one-sided account justifying its own behaviour. The Minister added that the trustees were asked to comment on the draft before it was published. That is true, but they are often given only a few days to comment on a document that has taken months to prepare and are confined to commenting only on factual content. They may well feel that the playing field is tilted towards the vertical. I have seen a recent case in which an inquiry was closed, but the charity, its lawyers, and its trustees were not told. I understand that the Charity Commission prepared a report on the charity on 11 February that was not sent to the charity until 13 July—at any rate that is the date on the covering letter. It was received by first class post on 15 July, with the reply to the report required by 25 July. That allowed, as there were two weekends in between, a pure six working days for it to arrive not by 25 July but on 25 July. Really that gave only five working days if one was to take first class postage into account as guaranteed by Royal Mail. Bearing in mind that many people, trustees included, can be away for a fortnight at that time of year on holiday, that is not good enough, and it is not fair and reasonable. It is because of that cavalier attitude of the commission that I move the amendment. I hope that noble Lords will agree it. I beg to move.