Charities Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 107:"Page 154, line 19, at end insert—" (1)   Section 79 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 (interpretation of Part 2) is amended as follows. (2)   For subsection (3)(a) substitute— ““(a)   any reference to a Minister included a reference to the Forestry Commissioners or to the Charity Commission; (aa)   any reference to an officer in relation to the Charity Commission were a reference to a member or member of staff of the Commission; and””. (3)   In subsection (4) after ““those Commissioners”” insert ““or that Commission””.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of the amendment is to preserve the position of the Charity Commission under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. Currently, the Charity Commissioners would be regarded as an office-holder under Part 2 of that Act, which would enable the contracting out of any of their functions which come within Section 69(1) of that Act, where a Minister makes an order providing for such contracting out. This provision amends the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 to provide that for the purposes of Part 2 of that Act any reference to a Minister includes a reference to the Charity Commission, such that any function of the commission to which Section 69 applies could be contracted out if a Minister by order so provides. However, the commission would not be able to make use of the ministerial order-making powers in Sections 69 and 70 of that Act. So the commission itself would not be able to make an order providing for the contracting out of any of its functions. We currently have no specific plans for the use of this power. However, we believe that the amendment will preserve the flexibility to contract out a function of the commission if it is considered appropriate to do so in future. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to. Schedule 9 [Repeals]: