Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Scott of Foscote and Lord Hope of Craighead

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

I shall speak also to Amendment 9 which is in my name and is grouped with Amendment 4. The amendment takes out the words “privy to” in the two places to which these amendments refer and inserts the words “participated in”. This is really a discussion about the use of language. The background can be narrated by referring to paragraph 122 of the committee’s report, in which we mentioned that a number of witnesses expressed concerns about the wording of this clause. Among the phrases referred to are “privy to the misconduct or management” and “facilitated it”, which we decided did not require further comment.

However, we picked up “privy”, which had been drawn to our attention by, as footnote 157 states, four charities: Bond, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Muslim Charities Forum and NCVO, which all expressed concern about the wording. “Privy” is a curious word and really rather antique. In the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary one of the definitions is,

“sharing in the secret of a person’s plans”.

I am not quite sure what that means in this context. The other possible meaning is,

“a person having a part or an interest in an action, matter or thing”,

which perhaps comes closer to what the draftsman has in mind.

When we were trying to find an equivalent formula, we suggested, in paragraph 125 of our report, “aware of”, but there may be more in it than that. There may be something more active than simply knowledge, which is why I am now suggesting “participated”, which is actually doing something to assist the act of misconduct or whatever it is. Either way, I suggest that “privy” already looks antique, and if this Bill is going to survive for a number of years, it will become increasingly so. It may be in the spirit of the present Government, as expressed by Mr Gove yesterday, to try to modernise and clarify language, and here is an opportunity to try to do the same thing. I offer the words “participated in” as an alternative to what we put into the report, but the basic suggestion is that something should be done to clarify what “privy” means.

This is an important clause because it deals with a situation where these very important powers may be exercised. Not only does the Charity Commission need to know what it should be driving at but the people against whom the powers are being exercised are entitled to know as well. I beg to move.

[Lord Scott of Foscote]

I entirely support the amendments proposed by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope for the reasons he has given. As he said, in the Oxford dictionary there are two alternative definitions of the expression “privy to” and neither would be appropriate in this part of the Bill. On,

“sharing in the secret of a person’s plans”,

I suppose that spouses share in the secrets of the plans of their partners, but that does not make them people who ought to be subject to the provisions of this Bill. The other meaning is,

“a person having a part or an interest in an action, matter or thing”.

“Interest” is not appropriate. The substituted words suggested by my noble and learned friend—“participated in”—seem much better and should be accepted.