CHARITIES AND ACTS DONE FOR CHARITABLE PURPOSES (Hansard, 23 October 1968)

§ Mr. Ennals
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this Amendment we can also take Lords Amendment No. 8.

§ Mr. Ennals
In the Bill as originally drafted, Clause 9 provided an exception for anything done in order to comply with the provisions of any enactment for charitable purposes and taking effect before the passing of the Act. New charities and those already made, but not taking effect before the passage of the Act, were not to benefit from the exception, although it was intended that if they sought to discriminate they should benefit from Clause 2(3) of the Bill as drafted. Clause 2(3) was deleted and the Government did not seek to reinstate it.
There therefore remained no exception in the Bill for discrimination by any future charity. The Government introduced an amendment on Report to protect the position of any future charitable instrument having as its main object the conferring of benefits on persons of a particular race, descent, ethnic or national origin.
The Amendment was welcomed by the Opposition and in another place. However, in another place there was criticism that it was too restrictive in that it did not cover the charitable instrument which had such a provision as one of its main objectives. An Amendment was proposed in another place which the Government thought defective, but it was 1340 agreed that there was a substantial point here, and it is in order to meet this criticism that this Amendment, accepted in another place, is now commended to the House.

§ Mr. Buck
We very much welcome this Amendment. It is fair to say that it has its origin in points raised from our side of the Committee. The original position seemed absurd. As originally drafted, the Bill would have made it well-nigh impossible for a charity to confer a benefit on a specific class or group of people. It was met partly by the Government Amendment in Committee, and this Amendment now goes the whole of the way to meet the situation which could arise if, for example, a rich Pakistani wishes to establish a charity for the benefit of a particular category of his fellow-countrymen.
There is no reason why this should not be done, and it is now made clear that this will be possible, even if only an ancillary purpose of the charity is of that character, whereas without the Amendment it would have had to be the main purpose. This ties the matter up and clarifies the position.