My Lords, I was sorry not to be able to take part in the Second Reading debate on the Bill, particularly as I was fortunate enough to serve under the excellent chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, on the pre-legislative scrutiny committee. I declare my interests as chair of a charity, International Students House, as a member of the councils of two universities—UCL and Nottingham Trent—and as a member of the advisory council of NCVO.
As a member of the committee, I want to comment briefly on this amendment. I certainly do not want to repeat the points made by the noble Baroness. However, it was quite clear that we felt that, in the course of a statutory inquiry, the commission should not be limited to evidence of misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the specific charity subject to such an inquiry. One discussion we had was around the Cup Trust, where the promoters of the scheme had a history of using charities in tax schemes.
However, we felt that the provisions of this part of the Bill were very broadly drawn since what is damaging to public trust and confidence in charities is obviously an open and potentially very subjective test. We shared the concerns of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which expressed its anxiety about the breadth of this provision. We also shared the concerns of NCVO and several other witnesses—as the noble Baroness said—about the risks associated with this power and its lack of clarity. In particular, I know that NCVO was concerned that, in the absence of guidance, trustees and charities will be uncertain about the possible consequences of their conduct in relation to matters that will probably not have anything to do with the management or administration of the charity. I am very conscious of the points made by so many noble Lords about the
reaction of trustees to the chilling effect of some of the commission’s powers. We are very unclear about the impact those powers will have.
As I said, I want to speak on this only briefly. I do not wish to exclude the reference to conduct not associated with charitable activities because that is very important. I hope the Government will look again at this. They said they would. They have not included any reference to this in the Bill, so I hope they will look again and be more explicit about the constraints on this apparently unlimited power.