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Charities Bill [Lords]

It has been an interesting debate with contributions from distinguished Members of the House, including the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), my right hon. Friends the Members for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) and for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael), and other hon. Members. In the time that I have available, I want to deal with both amendments. First, I want to bring together the questions of religion and of education, and the central burden of the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald. She asked, ““Why?”” Why should we have the principle that all charities must pass the test of public benefit, without a presumption in favour of a few? My answer to her is, fairness. Whether we are talking about the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Eton college or a religious charity, all should have to pass the public benefit test. That seems a pretty basic principle. The right hon. Lady might say, ““I agree with your principle, but I think that the practice is going to overwhelm the principle. I am really worried about what this will mean for religious charities.”” That was the second part of her remarks. I hope that I can reassure her on those points. First, I want to reassure her that removing the presumption that the advancement of religion provides public benefit is not intended to lead to a narrowing down of the range of religious activities that are considered charitable. Nor is the process intended to be onerous for individual religious institutions. The right hon. Lady talked about social mores. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), not for the first time in my experience, made an excellent speech on that point. Case law is the foundation of what we are debating in the Charities Bill and of the legislation on which we are moving forward. We have not put it all on the record in the Bill because that is simply not possible—that is the complexity of charity law. Yes, modern social mores play a role—the courts have determined that—but the foundation is case law.