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Charities Bill [HL]

My Lords, it might be helpful before we get into the detailed consideration of the Bill to make a short statement on the vote that was held on 12 October on Report. Your Lordships will recall that the House voted into the Bill an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, which removed the control of the Minister for the Civil Service over the terms and conditions of the staff of the new Charity Commission, substituting a provision that would allow the commission to determine the remuneration of its staff subject to an overall remuneration budget agreed with the Treasury. The amended provision is now paragraph 5(3) to a new Schedule 1A to the Charities Act 1993, which appears at line 41 on page 80 of the Bill. The Government have since had time to reflect and explore the effects and implications of that amendment. My understanding is that a significant effect of it may well be to remove from the Home Civil Service the staff of the new commission, with the exception of the chief executive, over whose terms and conditions ministerial control survives. That must in turn call into question the status of the commission under the amended Bill as a non-ministerial department. It was and remains the Government’s intention that the staff of the new commission should be in the Home Civil Service, as the staff of the present charity commissioners are. I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, intended by his amendment to remove the staff of the new Charity Commission from the Home Civil Service. Accordingly, the Government will consider what steps they can take in another place to ensure that the commission staff will continue to be in the Home Civil Service from the moment when the provisions converting the existing commissioners to the new commission take effect. I thank the House for bearing with me while I made that statement, but I thought it only right and proper, given that it was an amendment from your Lordships’ House, that I explained the situation and some of the difficulties that it has created. I am prepared simply to say that those noble Lords who are involved in the debate are welcome to join, perhaps with myself or the Bill’s Minister and officials, to discuss and reach a deeper understanding of the implications of the amendment. It is probably best left at that.