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Planning Bill

My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for the trouble she has taken, the letters she has written and the way she has tried to reach a solution on this rather tricky issue. In her letter she refers to the question of ““purpose”” or ““purposes”” which we discussed last time. She wrote to us to explain that ““purpose”” or ““purposes”” in her letter was the same under the Interpretation Act. It might be helpful if she could say that on the Floor of the House this evening. While many people will undoubtedly read her letter, more people will read the proceedings of this House in Hansard, so if she could say it again, that would be extraordinarily helpful. I have a great deal of sympathy with Amendment No. 16 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt. As he graphically pointed out, it is discriminatory against charities which happen to have ended up with their assets in land as opposed to in investments on the stock market. The Government have concerns about a windfall from development. It seems strange that you could get a windfall from a takeover on the stock market and be liable to no tax but on the other hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, pointed out, you could be CIL-able in terms of a land holding. Charities tend to be quite rich in land because schools and care homes will have land. Therefore, there will tend to be discrimination against them and against people who seek to leave property to charity in the future. I take slight issue with the Minister’s officials about one aspect of the letter. In our previous debate, I referred to the fact that Section 36 of the Charities Act 1993 contained an anti-avoidance provision. I felt that it underlined the reasons why Amendment No. 16, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, was worth pursuing. Her officials describe this as a reasonably undemanding requirement on the charity and what it can do. It is worth pointing out that the Act requires that, if there is a connected party, the disposition must go to the Charity Commission, whatever happens. In any case, the trustees have to, "““obtain and consider a written report on the proposed disposition from a qualified surveyor instructed by the trustees and acting exclusively for the charity””—" and— "““advertise the proposed disposition for such period and in such manner as the surveyor has advised””." Having considered the surveyor’s report, they must consider, "““that the terms on which the disposition is proposed to be made are the best that can reasonably be obtained for the charity””." There follows a definition of who the qualified surveyor must be. It is not fair for the Minister and her officials to say that these are reasonably undemanding requirements, as they force the charity to consider very carefully what they are doing and to take appropriate advice. If the charity fails to do that, the charitable resources requirement requires the Charity Commission to ensure that charitable resources are being used properly. One therefore wonders whether the Government have the appropriate confidence in the Charity Commission to carry out this task. I understand why they wish to leave this to the regulations. Indeed, the Minister says that draft regulations will be published in the spring and that they will listen carefully to the views of the sector, but this is the heart of the difficulty; we will have passed the Bill before the regulations come out. Moreover, the regulations are not amendable and will not come to this House, so it really is good night from us tonight on the detail of this part of the Bill. The issue of changing ““may”” to ““must”” has been detailed by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. It simply does not make sense for officials to write letters saying that this would be otiose and would lead to unworkable results, with duties that were impossible to fulfil. It would be helpful when the Minister winds up if she could give us some real-life examples of why this would be so. On our Amendment No. 21, the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, has a rather more draconian, scorched earth approach in that he wants to blast the whole thing out of the way, but I think that we need to make the change that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, has outlined: no ifs, no buts, no maybes. There are very clear controls on the way in which the clause will operate: you have to be a relevant charity, so there is no question of you being able to sneak into this; and, unless the Minister accepts Amendment No. 16, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, there will be regulations, which can be drawn up in such a way that they are anti-avoidance measures. We therefore do not need to think of a further, final failsafe in an anti-avoidance provision. I very much hope that the Minister will see that Amendment No. 21—and Amendment No. 25, which would ensure that the clause applies only to subsection (2)—is absolutely critical to maintain the confidence that the charitable sector should have in the way in which the Government propose to apply CIL to charities.