Clause 4. —(REGISTER OF CHARITIES)

HC Deb 15 July 1960 vol 626 cc1851-79

Mr. Renton

I beg to move, in page 4, tine 42, to leave out "not having" and to insert "having neither".

This is a drafting Amendment on lines proposed in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), to whom I am grateful for his suggestion.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Perhaps I might just say this before we deal with the Amendment. I agree at once that the Amendment clarifies the phraseology as it stands. The point that I am raising is whether the Amendment, if it is passed, affects the following Amendment, in page 4, line 42, leave out from "endowment" to "nor" in page 5, line 1. It seems to me that it might be advisable for the subsequent Amendment to be discussed with this one. It appears to me that the carrying of the first Amendment would preclude any discussion of the second, because that would make nonsense of the phraseology of the Clause. While I am not opposing in any way the Amendment moved by the Joint Under-Secretary, I feel that the following Amendment should be considered before we come to a decision on the first Amendment.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray)

The intention had been to discuss the next two Amendments together but to discuss the present Amendment separately.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

Perhaps I might point out my difficulty to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. It is purely a technical point. I am merely suggesting that before we take the vote on the Amendment moved by the Joint Under-Secretary we might have the discussion on—in view of what you have said—the next two Amendments at this stage with the earlier Amendment. If the earlier Amendment is taken before we deal with the next Amendments, the wording of the Clause would, as I understand it, be so altered as a result of the first Amendment that the carrying of the next two Amendments would make nonsense of the phraseology of the Bill. That is the only point. The Clause would read, beginning as it reads now: any charity not having any permanent endowment Then come the words which are proposed to be left out: nor any income from property amounting to more than fifteen pounds a year. Then it would go on: nor the use and occupation of any land.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I think that, if it would be for the convenience of the House, we can discuss all three Amendments together and just have the vote on the first Amendment.

Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)

I beg to move——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. Perhaps I did not make it clear. The Amendment which has been moved is the only one before the House. The succeeding two Amendments may be discussed with this one but not moved. We are on the first Amendment, although discussion may go over the next two Amendments.

Mr. Fletcher

I am much obliged, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I take it that after we have had the discussion on the Amendment which has been moved and the discussion on the next two Amendments we can then, if necessary, have a vote on the Amendments which I would desire to move.

Mr. Ede

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The Amendment actually under discussion now is one really designed to correct I am not sure whether it is the grammar of the Bill or the nice running of words in the Bill. If the word "neither" is going in, it seems to me that then the effect of the Amendment in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed Thomas) is to strike out the word "neither" if it is inserted. The object of the Joint Under-Secretary's Amendment is to insert it, and "neither" must be followed by "nor" and "nor" must follow "neither." If we strike out "neither," the word "nor" at the top of page 5 of the Bill becomes meaningless. Aware as I am that the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) has suggested better English to the Joint Under-Secretary, it seems to me that I shall have to vote for bad English if I am to get what I want in the next Amendment.

Mr. Renton

I think I may be able to help here, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. My Amendment is a simple drafting Amendment, the intention of which is merely to improve the wording and flow of the Clause. It is an Amendment which is of such a convenient character that it does not cause to fall any of the subsequent Amendments on the Order Paper. I would suggest that we dispose of the drafting Amendment first, and then take the subsequent Amendments as they come, knowing that it will be perfectly in order to do so, because from the drafting point of view they have not been invalidated by the Amendment which we are now to discuss.

Sir Hugh Lucas - Tooth (Hendon, South)

First, perhaps I shall be in order in expressing thanks to my hon. and learned Friend for moving the Amendment, which gives effect to what I suggested——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. I wonder whether it would be convenient for the House if we got quite clear what we are, in fact, discussing. It seemed that the suggestion that all three Amendments should be taken together would not be for the convenience of the House. Therefore, it would be better to do as the hon. and learned Gentleman has suggested and reach a conclusion on the first Amendment and afterwards take the other Amendments as they come.

2.30 p.m.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

I accept that suggestion, provided that, as you have indicated, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, there will be no difficulty about taking the next two Amendments even though the Amendment we are now discussing is carried.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

That is so. There will be no difficulty about taking the subsequent Amendments.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

I was thanking my hon. and learned Friend for having put down the Amendment. I was about to say that it is a little more than drafting, because it makes it clear that these matters are to be taken separately. I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) is right in saying that this will not in any way affect the next two Amendments. I think that they will be all the clearer if the Amendment is made.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

I welcome the Amendment, but as a purely drafting one. My view is, and always has been, that what this makes rather clearer was already reasonably clear in the Cluse as it stood. Whether it interferes with the following Amendments depends on how far one is a purist of language. It has now been ruled that the subsequent Amendments will be taken. I have no further opposition to the Amendment and I welcome it.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Fletcher

I beg to move, in page 4, line 42, to leave out from "endowment" to "nor" in page 5, line 1.

I understand that it is desired that we should discuss also the Amendment in page 5, line I, to leave out "fifteen" and to insert "twenty-five".

Mr. Speaker

Yes.

Mr. Fletcher

Some of us may desire to divide on both the Amendments. In any case, we would like to reserve our right to do so if that were acceptable to you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker

Yes.

Mr. Fletcher

I think that we would all agree that the Amendment to which the House has assented, and which was introduced largely because of suggestions made by the hon. Baronet the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) in Committee, makes Clause 4 (4, c) clearer. I do not think that it makes it any more satisfactory.

When the Clause was first debated on Second Reading, I had hoped to find that there would be excluded from the obligation of registration charities which did not have a permanent endowment, the use and occupation of land, or any income from property amounting to more than £15 a year. It is now clear that subsection (4, c) is intended to provide that a charity shall not be exempt from registration unless it satisfies all those three requirements which are placed in negative language.

The object of the Amendment which I have moved is to exclude from the obligation to register a charity which does not have any permanent endowment, does not have the use and occupation of land, but may perhaps have some income from property. The object of the second Amendment is to exempt from registration a charity which does not have a permanent endowment, does not enjoy the use and occupation of land, and does not have any income amounting to more than £25 a year.

We feel that the obligations of registration, carrying with them all the consequential powers of the commissioners, are so onerous that while they are desirable in the case of the vast majority of charities it is unnecessary that certain small charities should be put to the inconvenience and expense of having to register, of having to submit accounts, and perhaps having to submit to inquisitorial powers on the part of the Commissioners.

I have in mind a small charity with no permanent endowment and no land, but with certain gifts derived either from legacies or from covenants intended to serve a quite temporary purpose in which the obligation of the trustees is to spend the funds of the charity for some immediate purpose which may take two or three years and then exhaust itself. During that time any prudent trustee would normally place the funds on deposit. They might, or might not, earn as much as £15 or £25 a year, but where one has a small charity of that kind with no permanent endowment, no permanent purpose, but something to serve some purely temporary and transient charitable objective, it does not seem that there is any need to place on it the obligation of registration.

I hope for those reasons the Amendment will be accepted.

Mr. Renton

The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) said that his motive in moving the Amendment was to ensure that small charities were not put to what he called the onerous burden of registration.

I must point out that the Amendment would remove from the requirement of registration any charity without land for permanent endowment but with an accumulated capital producing £15 a year or more, that is, a capital of about £500 or more. There are a large number of charities with accumulated funds which are not permanent endowments. The capital is expendable, they are charities to which the public have contributed voluntarily, and we feel that it is only right that those charities should be registered.

In the terms of the hon. Gentleman's speech, the second Amendment seems a good deal more relevant because that raises the income limit from £15 to £25 a year. That would mean, in effect, that instead of charities with a small capital of about £500 having to register, only those with a capital of £800 or more would have to register. Those with a capital of about £800 or less would not have to do so.

This is not a question of law. It is a question of exercising our practical judgment as to what the right limit should be. The reasons why we have chosen £15 a year income as the limit are as follow. First, it represents accumulated funds of £500 which are not insubstantial, and, secondly, £15 a year has for a good many years been regarded by the Inland Revenue as a large enough sum to attract its attention when it is interest on savings deposits. Charities are entitled to Income Tax relief, registration will be conclusive evidence of their charitable status and until registration is challenged it will give the charity automatic relief from Income Tax. There is thus an obviously convenient administrative link-up between the sum of £15 a year and the desirability of registration.

Members of the public who give voluntary support to charitable funds should have the right to know of their existence and they will be able to find that out from the registration. I should also point out that charities are indirectly supported by what I might call involuntary contributions from ratepayers and taxpayers who also should have the right to find out what are charities and why they are getting relief.

There are great advantages in registration. It does not directly affect liability either way that is to say, registration carries the advantage of conclusive evidence of being a charity as in Clause 5, but if a charity fails to register it is not automatically removed from the jurisdiction of the court and the Commissioners. It is mainly of assistance to the public, to beneficiaries, to welfare workers, to local authorities, and so on. Great advantages are to be derived from it. This is something new and I cannot advise the acceptance of either Amendment.

Mr. Fletcher

The hon. and learned Gentleman speaks as though these charities are supported by funds from the public. I am thinking of a case where a testator has left £400 or £500 to be distributed over two or three years. It may have an income of £15 or £20, but why should such a benefaction be registered?

Mr. Renton

I do not want to make a very long speech, such as I made during the Committee stage proceedings, outlining all the circumstances of charities. I gave that as an example, a characteristic example, of the way in which accumulated capital, not impressed with a permanent endowment, may be acquired. I agree it can be acquired in other ways. But there are beneficiaries entitled to know what is happening and, as the Nathan Committee hoped, and the Government to a great extent have expected, there may be some voluntary co-operation between charity trustees and social welfare workers in the same sphere of operations, and that that cooperation will be greatly facilitated by the system of registration.

2.45 p.m.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

During our Committee proceedings I expressed doubt about the need for these words and I still feel the force of the case for this Amendment. But I also see the force of the reasons for my hon. and learned Friend's resistance. I am not certain that we have raised the fundamental point at issue. The difference between these charities and others is that these are of a ephemeral nature and the others are permanent charities by definition.

A lot of charities come into existence and may last for only two or three years whereas the register is to be there for ever. It is true that there is power to put charities on to the register and take them off again, but it is not to be exercised lightly. A charity on the register may be regarded as something more or less permanent. I can see the argument for having these ephemeral charities on the register, but if they are to be registered I suggest that they be kept in a different part of the register.

When the Bill becomes an Act I imagine, indeed it is implicit in the Bill, that the register will not simply consist of a long list of charities in alphabetical order. When it is drawn up I hope that it will be possible to deal with these short-lived charities which have no endowment, and by their nature are intended to last only for a year or two, in a separate part of the register and that it will be possible to look at that part often with a view to striking out the charities which have come to an end.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

The Joint Under-Secretary referred to the advantages of registration and indicated that the charities covered by the Amendment ought to be registered because they have the advantages of registration. That argument was trotted out time and again in Committee. I hope that we shall not hear it much more. The advantages of registration can be obtained by any charity applying to be put on the register. Therefore, all that is being done by ramming the advantages of registration down our throats is to indicate that the man in Whitehall knows 'best and that it is necessary to register a charity with no assets whatever except income from money which is itself expandable as income and amounts to more than £15 a year. That is ridiculous.

The figure of £15 is justified by comparison with the Post Office Savings Bank. We are not here dealing with the same Government Department. It is not a Treasury but a Home Office matter. The figure of £15 in relation to Post Office savings was selected for an entirely different purpose by a different Government Department and there is no justification for its adoption here. The real substance of the matter is what was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) by way of illustration. A testator may give £500 which is invested in a purely transitory investment to have the advantage of an income. It may be put in a savings bank, or a building society, just to earn some income in the meantime, and when that income has been earned it is used for charity.

The hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) referred to these charities as ephemeral, little charities which have no permanent endowment and no money except as income. They take the £500 which the Joint Under-Secretary referred to and spend the whole lot at any time, but, nevertheless, they are to be registered as a charity. It makes the whole thing ridiculous. It will clutter up the register and the only kind of law which I can see in its favour is Parkinson's Law. I hope that even at this late stage an Amendment on these lines will be accepted by the Government.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Speaker

I understand that the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) desires to move the next Amendment.

Mr. Fletcher

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I beg to move, in page 5, line 1, to leave out "fifteen" and to insert "twenty-five".

Amendment negatived.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

I beg to move, in page 5, line 2, at the end to insert: (d) any ecclesiastical charity, including a charity whose endowments, funds or income are held for some one or more of the purposes specified in the Local Government Act, 1894. I propose to deal with this matter extremely briefly at this stage, although it raises a very important question of principle. In Committee, we had a considerable debate on a similar Amendment. It raises the whole question of the position of religious charities. The object of the Amendment is to exclude religious charities from registration. As was mentioned in Committee, religious charities are in an entirely different position from non-religious charities. They are denominational in character and therefore known to the people in the denominations, who have an interest in seeing haw the charity is administered.

They are instruments of the denomination itself and as such they should be immune, as far as we can ensure, from any outside interference. A religious charity is an instrument of religion and should be respected as such. Those are the indications of the kind of consideration of principle which arises under the Amendment.

The question of religious charities will be raised later in other Amendments in the names of my hon. Friends and myself. They raise points which were not raised in the Committee. I am sure that it will be much more convenient if we deal with those when we come to them. The object in putting forward this Amendment after it was discussed in Committee was that the Joint Under-Secretary was good enough to say that he would think again about the matter. We know that he looks again at Amendments, as he indicated to the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade), but the trouble is that he looks away again. We should like to know the effect of his looking at this Amendment.

Mr. Wade

Before I make a few observations on this Amendment may I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether the following Amendment in my name has been selected, in page 5, line 4, at the end to add: nor in respect of any hall, Sunday school, residence for a Minister of religion, caretaker's residence or other ancillary land or building used in connection therewith"?

Mr. Speaker

The answer is, "Yes".

Mr. Wade

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish now to make a general observation on the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas). I think that many of the complications which have arisen in applying the new procedure of registration with the Charity Commission arise from bringing in religious bodies. Inevitably they must come into a special category. In the first place, they are different from the majority of charities. The trustees of churches and chapels are responsible to the members of their particular denominations. The general public is not concerned in quite the same way.

There are further difficulties in applying this new procedure of registration, because there is already the existing procedure for registration of places of worship. That is recognised in Clause 4. It will become clearer when we discuss the next Amendment that, however one deals with this matter, there are bound to be difficulties if we attempt to apply the procedure to registered places of worship and buildings connected with places of worship. For that reason, I think it would have been simpler if we could have found some way of excluding what I rather loosely call churches, chapels and their buildings.

We are faced with the further problem that a distinction is being made between one denomination and another. That does not apply to the Church of England. I understand that the Methodist denomination will be dealt with somewhat differently from the Congregationalists and the Baptists. That again arises from the attempt to apply this new registration procedure to churches and chapels. On that general point, I still think it would have been better if we had excluded them altogether.

Mr. Ede

I wish to support this Amendment. We discussed the general principle at very considerable length in Committee and I do not intend to repeat at large the arguments I then used, but it is essential to bear in mind that the religious denominations in the country have the widest variety of organisation, particularly as between the local cause and such union or body as can be regarded as speaking for them nationally.

A highly organised body like the Methodist Church has a very different position in this matter from the body which, for want of a better word, and using the word without a capital "C", are on a congregational basis, where in each area there is no claim that the denomination speaks for the parish or area as a whole. In that, the congregational churches are distinguished from those of the Establishment and those of the Presbyterian method of church government where there is a distinct disciplinary link between the central body and the local cause.

I shall not ask the Joint Under-Secretary to repeat the statistics he gave in Committee, but, when one thinks of the wide variety of religious denominations in the country, it is obvious that this is a matter of very considerable intricacy if the law is to be as the hon. and learned Gentleman has now got it in the Bill. He discovered what to my mind was a very good definition of the Nonconformist cause, which I think ought not be included in the Bill, when in Committee he referred to congregations: leaving trustees, who, in their own minds, at any rate, are responsible only to God and themselves."—[OFFICI AL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 30th June, 1960, c. 344.] It is the best definition of Congregational noncomformity that I know, and I thank the hon. and learned Member for having given it to us.

But he must realise that he is touching very lively feelings in the minds of a great many quite estimable people, whose history and whose struggles to maintain their independence are part of the history of this country, when he attempts to bring them within the purview of the secular law. Even the history of this House at times has been violently disturbed by the conflict between independence and the Presbyterian form of Government. One of your predecessors, Mr. Speaker, was moved from the Chair in the course of that struggle, and another was held down in the Chair in the course of this quarrel between independence and the Presbyterian outlook on man's religious responsibilities in the secular sphere.

I regret that the hon. and learned Member feels that it is important that he should insist on including ecclesiastical charities in the Bill. It is not as if we can regard every ecclesiastical charity in the country as being either by tradition or present importance similar to every other ecclesiastical charity, and in the long history of the struggle for religious freedom in this country the cause of independence has played no inconsiderable part. I regret to see it ignored in the Bill.

3.0 p.m.

Mr. Renton

We are discussing whether religious charities, as widely defined in the Amendment, should be excluded from the requirement of registration in the Bill. From the tenor of the speech by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) it seems that he hoped that if all the religious charitable trusts were excluded from registration, they would be excluded from the jurisdiction of the Commissioners and of the court. We should certainly be doing something new if we attempted to do that. Indeed, the very foundation of the Chancery Court's jurisdiction in charitable trusts is the supervision exercised previously by the ecclesiastical courts over a religious trust.

Mr. Ede

The hon. and learned Member must realise that he is now saying that noncomformity is wrong, and that I cannot accept.

Mr. Renton

I am not saying that. Perhaps this can be summarised by quoting the lines of Alexander Pope, which I hope the right hon. Gentleman can endorse: In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity. That applies equally to religious trusts as to other trusts. It has been the foundation of the jurisdiction of the courts that there is a public interest at stake.

I must not digress too far upon that, however, because here we are discussing a much narrower question—the question whether the religious trusts, broadly speaking, should be required to register. We have made our position perfectly plain. We have said that the denominations, with their different types of organisation, each, in different ways— and they are very different ways—have an organisation which enables us to dispense with the individual registration of every single religious charity which comes within that organisation. But we say that the circumstances are so variable that the matter is better covered by excepting regulations, for which provision is made by the Bill and the possibility of which has already been explored on behalf of the Home Office with representatives of the Churches Main Committee and, indeed, with some of the individual denominations, too.

We feel that it is far better to have tailor-made regulations meeting the requirements of the various denominations than that there should be a wide blanket exception in favour of all religious charities such as is envisaged by the Amendment. I remind the House, as I pointed out in detail to the Committee, that the Amendment goes very wide indeed. It relies upon the definition of an ecclesiastical charity in the Local Government Act, 1894, and it means a charity with very widely drawn purposes, including "any spiritual purpose". In Committee I pointed out that 'in the Home Office we know of roughly a thousand religious sects, some of them quite ephemeral, and this blanket exception would apply to all the religious trusts of all those sects.

I am advised that it would go even further, because it would even exempt some of the welfare charities of religious organisations. If they are excluded from any kind of registration, it would be very difficult to get co-operation in the welfare field between them and the welfare services. That co-operation would be stultified by lack of the information which we hope that the Register will give.

The Amendment would also cover trusts held by outside trustees which were not necessarily, and very frequently would not be, within the denominational organisation. It would cover building funds held by such trustees. There is little doubt that a good many building funds for church purposes never come to fruition. That is well known. They get forgotten and lie dormant. It is right that the existence of those funds should be recorded so as to ensure that they are not lost.

I do not want to weary the House with a repetition of the arguments in favour of registration. I do not say that merely because on the last Amendment the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) said that he hoped we would hear nothing more of those advantages. I feel that those advantages should not be lost sight of, but they have already been mentioned by me to the House this afternoon and I will not repeat them. They are, nevertheless, advantages which will accrue to the benefit of religious charitable trusts as much as to any others.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

I must make it clear that I do not object to the advantages. What I object to is the advantages being made compulsory for people who do not want them, for instance in small or ephemeral cases and cases where there are very strong religious considerations and considerations of principle.

I should be obliged if the Joint Under-Secretary would deal with the one point with which I was hoping that he would deal. The point was raised expressly in Committee, and the hon. and learned Gentleman said that he would be good enough to look at it. As I understand it and as he confirmed in Committee, the only transactions which would not have to be registered in the case of religious charities under the schemes he has in mind under the Orders and Regulations which are contemplated are cases of investments of sums expendable as producing income exceeding £15 a year. That is the only ambit of advantage to religious charities which he contemplates under the Orders and Regulations by which he proposes to make exceptions. I should like to know if, after looking at this question again, he has moved at all from that position, or does it still stand?

Mr. Renton

With respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, he is quite ignoring a large part of the discussion which we had in Committee and the undertakings which both the Lord Chancellor and I have given in another place and in Committee. My noble Friend and I have made it clear that the excepting Regulations will apply where there are denominational organisations which are capable of showing to the Commissioners what the trusts are. We have also said that the expendable funds of the living church—the common purse, as we call it—will not require to be registered. As the Bill already clearly provides, a registered place of worship will not have to be registered again. It will not have to be put in the Charities Register.

We understand from the Churches Main Committee that the way in which we are meeting it, which is a very broad way, covering a large number of charitable trusts, gives the Committee satisfaction. If we went the whole hog and excluded from registration every kind of trust which can conceivably be covered by the Amendment, which goes very far, we should be frustrating one of the main purposes of the Bill and one of the main advantages of registration.

Having given this matter an infinite amount of attention, I cannot advise the House that it would be wise to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Fletcher

Before we part with this Amendment, I must briefly explain why I am profoundly disappointed by the reply which we have had from the Minister. It is perfectly true that this question was discussed at some length in Committee, and I think rightly so, because this is a matter of very great concern, and I do not think that the Minister or the Government have done justice to the problem.

It is perfectly true that certain undertakings were given by the Lord Chancellor in another place, and it is contemplated. I have no doubt. That various Orders will be made. They may or may not be made, and, when made, they may or not be satisfactory. We are here legislating in a sphere in which the House appears to legislate only once every fifty or hundred years or so, and it is important, for the reasons which my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has given, that we should let the public feel that there is no misunderstanding about what the Government are doing in this Bill.

What troubles me is that the Government have not yet faced the fact that there is a profound difference between charitable trusts which are organised for the benefit of religion and all other charitable trusts. In the case of ecclesiastical or religious charities, there is always a body of persons subscribing to the particular faith or confession who are naturally interested in seeing that these trusts will be observed. Therefore, the reasons for registration do not exist. The outstanding reason for registration for most charities is that very often the beneficiaries cannot be readily found, or may be a very wide group, or may not have any rights or any interest to see that the charitable objects are fulfilled. With a religious charity, there is always a body of persons, continually changing, who are interested in seeing that the objects of the religious charity are carried out.

I agree with my right hon. Friend. The Bill as it stands seems to me to contain this invidious difference between the Church of England, which is exempt under the Schedule, and all other religious denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodists, the Congregationalists, the Unitarians and various other bodies. It seems to me that that is unfortunate, and not only unfortunate, but unnecessary.

It is true that the hon. and learned Gentleman has said that in this Clause we are exempting the charities in respect of a registered place of worship. It seems to me that precisely the same reasons which justify that exemption can be urged to justify extending the exemption to charities created, not merely for the establishment or maintenance of a place of worship, but for any other cause related to the work of the denomination.

Therefore, although I have no doubt that it is too late to hope that the Government will change their minds, I think that we should register this emphatic protest about what I regard as a very regrettable feature of the Bill as it stands.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Wade

I beg to move, in page 5, line 4, at the end to insert: nor in respect of any hall, Sunday school, residence for a Minister of religion, caretaker's residence or other ancillary land or building used in connection therewith". One of the reasons for tabling this Amendment was to enable the Joint Under-Secretary to answer some observations which I made when discussing the Sixth Schedule in Committee, which are to be found in column 416 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Standing Committee for 5th July. This matter raises the whole problem of registration and of the application of this Clause. We have discussed the general principle, and I am now concerned with its application.

As I understand, a distinction is to be made between trust corporations which are trustees of a number of denominational properties and churches with private trustees. I understand that this will be dealt with under excepting regulations, and, of course, we are very much in the dark, because we have not seen the regulations. That has been one of the obstacles to the debates on the Bill. I can only argue from what I understand will take place.

3.15 p.m.

It seems to me that churches with private trustees will have to rely on Clause 4, unless there is some special excepting regulation. That being so, the private trustees will have to look at subsection (4) of Clause 4, which must be read together with subsection (9), and with the Sixth Schedule, and that will have the following effect.

If a church with private trustees has no other adjoiing buildings, and it is a registered place of worship, there will be no need to register. If there are buildings adjoining that come within the definition of the Sixth Schedule, the trustees will be expected to make an application, as provided in that Schedule, to show that the property does adjoin and is held on the same trusts. In that case, there will be no necessity to register with the Charity Commissioners.

Thirdly, where some buildings are separate it would seem that the trustees will have to make an application in respect of the buildings that adjoin, but will have to register the buildings that are separate. There are various other combinations and permutations. For instance, in Committee I mentioned the case of the dual purpose church which, on certain occasions, is a place of worship, but which, by the movement of a partition, becomes a meeting hall or a Sunday school. I am not quite sure what happens there. Assuming that there is to be registration, that Clause 4 applies, it would at least be helpful if we knew how it is to work out.

Finally, are trust corporations—trustees for a number of churches and chapels and properties—to be excepted altogether, or have they to provide a list of all those properties that are registrable under Clause 4? If it is the latter, they will have to go through all their trusts very carefully to ascertain which individual trusts are registrable and which are not. I hope that I have stated the problem, and I apologise for repeating much of what I said in Committee. I trust that we shall have some enlightenment from the Under-Secretary.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

I very much support this Amendment. I myself feel particularly tender as, I am sure, does the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade), about the small church with private trustees, as contrasted with the trust corporation of a denomination. In this respect, I have a feeling analogous to that that I have for the small tradesmen. Nowadays, too much goes in favour of the big organisation, which can bring pressure to bear, and it is the particular concern of us here in this House to see that these small organisations are properly looked after. It is only by seeing to the amendment of this Clause that we can deal with that matter. I myself have later Amendments dealing with trust corporations, and I certainly support the exclusion of trust corporations of denominations from this Bill. As I say, I am particularly concerned about the small churches with private trustees.

It is unfortunate that we have not got the regulations, or the directions on which the regulations will be established, which will deal with what are called the exceptions from registration from the provisions of this Bill. The word "exception" is extremely misleading. We are all indebted to the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) who, at the end of a very long discussion, extracted from the Joint Under-Secretary the acknowledgment that this exception was not really an exception from registration at all, but was merely a different method of registration. What is to happen is not that these charities are to be excepted from registration, but that they are to be included in the registration of the group or the denomination or organisation, whatever it is, to which they belong. So it really goes to method of registration rather than to exception from registration altogether.

In view of the hon. Gentleman's intervention on that occasion in Committee, we pursued the matter, and in view of the observations then made by the Under-Secretary—as he said today, at considerable length—we extracted a certain amount of information from him as to what was involved in the exception of religious denominations from registration under the scheme which the Minister has in mind. I put the position with regard to the registration of religious denominations, as is reported in c. 128 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee proceedings, and I summarised the position by four propositions with which I understood the Under-Secretary to agree. In view of the answer that the Under-Secretary gave on the last Amendment, I must refer to these propositions in order to have the position finally clarified.

What does the long review which the Under-Secretary gave us of the position of registration of religious charities come to? First, places of worship as defined in the Bill need not be registered at all. He referred to that on the last Amendment. I accept that places of worship need not be registered at all. But what advantage is that to the religious denominations? They are not to be registered simply because they are, in fact, already registered under another Act. That is all. So they have to be registered, although it so happens not under this Act but under another one. Therefore, there is no advantage at all to the religious denominations. We are not granting them exception from registration. What we are saying is that they need not be registered under this Measure because they are registered under another Act. That is one category of cases.

The second category of cases is that of endowments. If a religious charity or denomination has an endowment that must be registered. An endowment is very widely defined as any fund the whole of which is not expendable as income.

Mr. Renton

I wonder whether I may intervene. I do not wish to break the run of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument, but we are in this difficulty, that at the moment we are discussing the question of certain types of religious building. In doing so, the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) quite rightly referred to the definition in the Bill of place of worship. As I understand, the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) is now inviting me to restate the Government's view with regard to endowments and, indeed, he may be going on to yet other matters. I should have thought that, at this moment, it would be best to stick to the religious properties.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

If the hon. and learned Gentleman is taking that as a point of order, perhaps I may reply to it. I agree that, if I put it as an invitation to him to reply on matters outside the scope of the Amendment, then I am, strictly, not in order. I will put it in this way, which may exclude him from having an opportunity to reply to it at all. I am putting the Amendment with regard to a hall, Sunday school, caretaker's residence, and so on, in its setting, examining in its setting what is excluded from the registration of religious charities.

I say that religious charities are being very hardly dealt with by the Government and I am stating as a fact, which has been confirmed by the Minister in Committee, what has or has not to be registered and using that as an argument for accepting at least the little that is contained in the Amendment. I will put the matter in that form, which, I conceive, will bring me within order, but which may not allow the Joint Under-Secretary of State to reply to the points I am putting.

The second proposition is that all endowments must be registered, an endowment being defined as any fund the whole of which is not expendable as income, an extremely wide definition. First, there are places of worship expressly referred to in the Amendment, which need not be registered under the Bill because they already have to be registered. There is no advantage to religious charities in that. Secondly, all endowments must be registered, and there is no advantage to religious charities with regard to endowments. We then have the case of ordinary income expendable as such, and this does not have to be registered in any case, whether the charity be religious or not. There is no advantage to religious charities in that.

The only advantage to religious charities which it is suggested should be given under the orders and regulations to be made relates to income if it exceeds £15 a year from investments in which money has been invested where that money is itself expendable as income. In other words, the limitation in respect of £15 a year of income from income invested and then reproducing income which applies under Clause 4 to all charities does not apply to religious charities.

That is the only advantage which religious charities will have under what are called the exceptions. That is why I say that religious charities are being extremely hardly dealt with in the Bill, and that is why I say, also, that to call the proposed orders and regulations something giving exceptions is to use a complete misnomer.

All that involves is that the various religious charities will themselves be registered together under one umbrella instead of being separately registered as separate charities in different parts of the register. The only advantage is that if the expendable income from property amounts to more than £15 a year a religious charity need not be registered, although other charities have to be registered.

The matter has been dealt with in an extremely misleading way. Until the intervention of the hon. Member for Hendon, South we thought that these exceptions were real and valid ones, and not just different methods of registration. The only exception concerns the £15 a year of expendable income. That is the analysis I venture to make of the Joint Under-Secretary's speech in Committee.

3.30 p.m.

Mr. Renton

Judging by the hon. and learned Member's speech, one would have thought that the Bill was doing the most exacting things towards religious charities and their properties. I must remind the hon. and learned Member that at present all land belonging to religious charities has to be registered with the Commissioners under the law of mortmain, which we are abolishing, and by requiring religious land to be registered with the Commissioners we are not making the position of religious charities any worse than it now is.

Indeed, we are using the registration provisions of a Statute which has existed since 1855 as a convenient method of registering most religious properties, that is to say, places of worship as defined. I take it that the Amendment is mainly a probing one. In fairness to the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade), I must point out that if we added the wards he suggests and did nothing else there would be a good deal of overlapping in the Bill.

Mr. Wade

There would have to be consequential Amendments.

Mr. Renton

It may help the hon. Member if I say that the complicated formula in the Sixth Schedule, which has given rise to a good deal of difficulty, is the consolidation of previous statutes, only slightly amended. It reproduces the terms of the Charitable Trusts (Places of Worship) Amendment Act, of 1894, and enables us to clear that Act from the Statute Book.

We have done this by making substantive Amendments to the original Act of 1855, to which I have referred. We are simply carrying forward the amended definition of "places of religious worship", which was settled sixty-five years ago and which, presumably, the people whom it affects understand and have come to rely upon as a means of claiming right to relief and establishing that the land is, at any rate, religious property.

The Act of 1894 and the Sixth Schedule recognise two classes of case: first, the curtilage of the place of worship, including the vestry and the caretaker's house, physically connected with and held on the same trust as the place of worship; and, secondly, other buildings which, under the Bill, will be certified by the Charity Commissioners to be held on the same trust because they are so connected by situation that they cannot conveniently be separated from the place of worship but, nevertheless, cannot be regarded as in the same legal position.

Clause 4 provides that no charity need register merely on account of a registered place of worship. A place of worship here includes all the land physically comprised in the same parcel and to be found at the same address, as defined in the amending Act of 1894. The Amendment, on the other hand, goes much wider. It would have the effect of excluding from the duty to register halls, Sunday schools, ministers' and caretakers' residences and all ancillary lands and buildings used in connection with the registered place of worship. It would do so irrespective of whether there was any other connection, whether physical or legal, between the two.

Many day schools are also Sunday schools associated with places of worship. There is nothing in the Amendment to require that the premises should be wholly or mainly used in connection with a church or chapel. Indeed, the words are so vague that it is impossible to predict what effect a court might give to them. How can a hall, for example, be "used in connection" with a place of worship? Why should it be assumed that it would be? The two are quite different in function. Then, there are ministers' residences which are sometimes not used in connection with places of worship. We should bear in mind the whole position under the Bill of functional land in this context.

The purpose of registering functional land is that it should be readily ascertainable what land is occupied for the purpose of the charity. The Pritchard Committee recommended this. Registered places of worship are excepted in the Bill because they are registered and enjoy their own exemption from rates, apart from their charitable status, under another statutory scheme. We have retained the extended definition of places of worship to avoid confusion, to avoid disturbing the existing legal position and to avoid upsetting the existing definition, but there is no case for extending it or for demanding exemption as a privilege or right of religious charities.

Both the hon. and learned Member and the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West approached the whole question on the assumption that premises of religious charities ought not to be registered if it can be avoided, but organised charity, including religious charity, has accepted in principle the desirability of registering functional land. We are all familiar with the case for registration—it has been mentioned twice already this afternoon—and the religious denominations, on the whole, have not objected to registration of this sort.

On this Amendment, as on the two previous Amendments when we discussed religious charities, the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) asked us to assume that religious charities and their properties should be treated on a completely different basis from other charities. That is a proposition which, laying all the cards on the table, I cannot possibly, on behalf of the Government, accept. We realise that they have their particular circumstances which will enable them to be excepted from some of the obligations of the Bill, including, to a great extent, the obligation to register. I cannot, however, go the whole way with the hon. and learned Member and other hon. Members when they suggest that religious charities and their properties should be, in general, treated differently. The Amendment is an attempt to give expression to that point of view, with which we cannot agree, and we cannot advise the House to accept it.

Mr. Wade

May I ask a practical question? Putting on one side the issues of principle, and forgetting for the moment the historical background but taking the illustration which I used in Committee, if there is a Sunday school or a minister's manse which is on the other side of the road, or a little distance away from the chapel, will it have to be registered differently? Will the trustees have to consider in every case whether a particular building has to be registered with the registered place of worship or separately with the Charity Commissioners?

Mr. Renton

I can best answer that question, and in a very simple way, by inviting the attention of the hon. Gentleman to the Sixth Schedule, on page 53 of the Bill. If he looks at that he will find that there are a paragraph (a) and a paragraph (b) in the amended definition. In the case of paragraph (a) there is no need to submit for registration: there is automatic exception from registration. In the case of buildings coming within paragraph (b) there should be registration unless an application is made to the Commissioners for an order that there need not be registration.

In many cases, it will be just as easy to submit particulars for registration as to apply to the Commissioners for an order. I should candidly say that. There is not a tremendous lot in it. Having pointed that out, I think it gives a reasonably full and lucid answer to the various hypothetical points which the hon. Gentleman mentioned at the last meeting of the Standing Committee and some of which he has repeated again today.

Mr. Ede

We have now reached a stage in this discussion where any sensible layman would go off and have tea, and then come back when the lawyers have settled the exceedingly minute technical points in which they so much delight. The Joint Under-Secretary of State is a barrister, the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) is a solicitor. I am only a Nonconformist.

The hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to the Sixth Schedule and we have just had, as I understand it, an exposition of the first Act mentioned in the Sixth Schedule. For a minute I wondered what (a) and (b) were, but then I found, in the second column, that these are amendments, of a highly technical and abstruse nature, of an Act which was passed as long ago as 1855 when, I suppose, the House was not concerned with the mismanagement of the Crimean War and passed the Places of Worship Registration Act, 1855.

When one takes into account the altered social circumstances of the country in the 105 years which have elapsed since then, it requires some justification for it to be applied at all to the circumstances of 1960. I have tried the hon. and learned Gentleman's patience very considerably during the progress of this Bill.

Mr. Renton

No.

Mr. Ede

I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will not mind if I try to deal not with the Act of 1855 but with the Amendment proposed by the hon. Member, for one of the problems which confront religious denominations of all varieties is the way in which the spread of the population in the 105 years since the Act of 1855 has altered their position in regard to land and buildings.

Some of the churches, certainly of my own denomination, were established to serve the population as it was at about that time. Owing to various causes the population disappeared from places near the sites of those churches. It is now spread about upon the peripheries or in the suburbs of the districts which the churches were to serve.

The halls, Sunday schools, ministers' residences and caretakers' residences are a long way from the original church and it is desired that they should be put in the same position as if they were part of the church real estate, which was where the church originally started.

3.45 p.m.

This position varies from place to place. During the Whitsun Recess I attended the 250th anniversary celebrations of the Unitarian Church in Sidmouth. Where the original church had stood, with a chapel, those responsible had been able to build next to it, as a result of legacies left to them, a hall and Sunday school which were still within the same curtilage. I suppose that there is no doubt that the registration of that piece of property is comparatively simple.

In the City of Liverpool, however, where my denomination has been for 200 years a powerful force in the community, the original church is in a part of the city which is no longer residential. Worshippers come to it on a Sunday from a considerable distance in the outlying parts of the city. But the places where the actual contacts with the life of the city during the week are made for religious purposes—the boys' clubs and important centres of various church activities—are scattered about in parts of the city which are now built up. In the days when the original church building was erected these places were open fields and were often in civil parishes different from that in which the church is situated. But the responsibilities of the church for these buildings are exactly the same in that area as they are in the case of Sidmouth.

What we really want to know is whether it is necessary that all these buildings in the outlying parts should be separately registered. This is specially important when the central denominational body, in the case of Baptist and Congregational churches, that is to say, the bodies incorporated in their Act of 1951, and, in the case of the Unitarians, the British and Foreign Unitarian Association Incorporated, are the trustees, or on occasion one of the trustees of the property.

I do not share the anxieties of the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West about what would happen if these central bodies are recognised. If they ask to be recognised they must undertake the carrying out of the requirements which the Bill may place upon them. If it is inconvenient to collect details of these properties it is after all a job that has to be done only once and if a denomination is to undertake it centrally it must provide the machinery to do it competently on that occasion.

No matter what one's relationship to a denomination may be, I regard the organisation of all of them as equally entitled to respect. In the main, the responsibility for a church on the ground is that of well-meaning, good citizens who are laymen, not chancery lawyers and who, if they have to read the Sixth Schedule of the Bill, might just as well try to read the New Testament in the original Greek. These people are serving what we regard in this country as a good purpose, in maintaining an active religious organisation and what the hon. and learned Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department called in Committee "the living church".

The duties placed on them ought to be as simple as possible. The dealings with the whole of their real estate ought to be as simple as possible, and the law should make it possible for all those various buildings and pieces of land to be dealt with as a unit, as a part of the living church which now, owing to the changes in the last one hundred years, has to cover a multitude of buildings which at one time it could easily have dealt with from the original central church.

I apologise that I cannot state this in the learned terms used by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas), who thought that he had discovered a way in which he could put the point and the hon. and learned Gentleman would be out of order in answering it. I have not so far been ruled out of order, and there have been two occupants of the Chair while I have been speaking. Therefore, I must hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman can in layman's English explain to me, apart from the Sixth Schedule, what is the exact position that people of the kind that I have just been describing will have to face when the Bill becomes law.

Mr. Renton

I understand that there is a tailor's shop in the Strand which now displays a notice saying "Legal Gentlemen Understood." I hope that when I have finished the House will feel, at any rate metaphorically, inclined to wear the same kind of notice on its heart.

The right hon. Gentleman need not have apologised. He explained his point extremely clearly. I will do my best to explain yet again what the position is, but I must do so in the context of the Amendment which we are now discussing.

The position is that since 1855 there has been a system of registration of places of worship with the Registrar-General under that Act. Anything which comes within that Act or within the amended definition by which the original definition in the Act has now been replaced will not have to be registered as well by the Charity Commissioners. That is the first thing, and it covers, I should point out, a wide range of religious buildings—to use a noncommittal term.

The next important thing is that owing to the system of excepting regulations tailor-made for each of the denominations which we are to have negotiated there will be a further range of religious buildings which will not have to be on the central register of the Charity Commission. The question which the right hon. Gentleman has asked me is whether in the hypothetical case—it may be an actual case to him, but it is a hypothetical case to me—which he has put there will have to be separate registration of all the properties.

My answer is as follows. The right hon. Gentleman will probably find that most of the properties are already registered under the 1855 Act. If they are not, the question will arise whether they are being looked after by a responsible denominational body which has its own record of these properties. If they are being looked after in that way, that body will be able to answer for them and so will get the benefit of excepting regulations, and so those properties would not then have to be separately registered in the central register.

I wish that what I have said covered every religious property in this country. I wish that the 1855 Act or the excepting regulations covered them all, because that would save a lot of trouble for all concerned, but there are no doubt many religious buildings, some of them very small ones which get lost sight of, which are not accounted for under either of those heads. They will have to be registered, and it is right that they should be.

I think that my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General gave an example to the Standing Committee of religious buildings which can be completely lost to sight and their existence as a charity cease to be known in the short space of eleven years. There was the case at Ventnor of the building which was not to be used as a Roman Catholic church or Socinian chapel or tea garden, but which was handed to trustees for the benefit of Ventnor Town Mission, formerly known as the Scripture Leader's Association and Workmen's Mission Hall.

It was last used in 1939 and was completely lost sight of until the last survivtrustees died in 1958. The intentions of the donors were not only frustrated, but lost sight of, and the matter could not be followed up because there was no registration. We hope that by registration instances of that kind will be avoided in future.

Amendment negatived.