My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questions and comments. Essentially, these regulations are about creating legal certainty when the 2014 Act commences. The policy intention has always been that the Act should apply only where special trustees are dealing with non-charitable matters. That policy is already reflected in the Act, albeit in an indirect way, through cross-reference to other legislation in respect of the accounts of special trustees. However, the background legislation to this amendment is complex, and by not limiting the relevant authority reference to special trustees to when they deal with non-charitable matters, a number of provisions apply generally to special trustees. We considered that to be unsatisfactory and it is why the amendment we are making is necessary as a point of clarification. In other words, there is an overlap between the Local Audit and Accountability Act and the Charities Act. The noble Lord knows as well as I do that lawyers find that sort of thing extremely untidy.
Lest the noble Lord think that this is purely an academic matter, I am advised that it is perfectly possible for special trustees to hold non-charitable property. The DH guidance in 2011 says that NHS trustees have the power to accept and hold trust funds other than charitable funds and asks the NHS trustees to consult the department if they are considering accepting donations under terms not regarded as charitable. That could occur where funds are donated for the support of an independent patient, or for such a small and specific group of patients that it does not qualify as a charitable purpose under the Charities Act 2011. In other words, the special trustees would just be custodians of those funds in those circumstances.
As regards the noble Lord’s final question on whether I consider the charitable funds to be safeguarded and in good hands, I have no reason to doubt that that is
the case. I do not have any background on the charitable funds themselves, but if I can comment on that matter, I would be happy to write to him.