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Charities Bill [HL]

My Lords, this is a bit of general knockabout, so I will treat it with the respect it deserves. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, could probably tell your Lordships’ better than I why the Bill was delayed at all first time round. We thought it was uncontroversial legislation. We had given it a thorough bout of House of Lords scrutiny and we thought that our colleagues at the other end, just prior to the 2005 general election, would happily see it through. Then, when the opportunity was presented to have a definitive piece of charity law on the statute book, the Conservatives in another place, for reasons best known to themselves—perhaps they saw some controversy in it that we at this end did not see—decided to knock it on the head and kill it off. That was a great shame because we have, as a consequence, spent a lot longer getting to this happy point of putting this legislation to bed and seeing it happily on its way. The delay is regrettable in the sense that the parliamentary process has taken rather longer than it should have, with timetabling, and so on, but it has meant that the Bill has been further scrutinised. It is probably one of the most scrutinised non-controversial Bills of all time. That is no bad thing, because it has enabled experts in the field such as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, to help us sharpen it up. It has been sharpened up also by notable contributions from the Benches opposite, not least from the noble Lords, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, Lord Swinfen, Lord Shutt, and others. The Bill is in almost perfect form. We have a small hurdle to clear this evening, which I am sure will not detain your Lordships' House too long, except for, I am sure, very well informed questions. On Question, Motion agreed to. 1: Clause 2, page 2, line 22, at end insert ““, or of the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services””