This policy seeks to safeguard the integrity of the charitable sector by preventing organisations with partisan political agendas from exploiting charity status. It addresses concerns about entities using charitable registration to gain tax exemptions and public legitimacy while primarily engaging in political activism or funding coordinated advocacy efforts. By prohibiting political activity and lobbying, the policy ensures charities remain dedicated to apolitical public benefit, reinforcing trust in their impartiality and purpose.
2. Background
Charities in England and Wales are regulated under the Charities Act 2011, which allows them to engage in political activity only if it directly supports their charitable purposes and is not their dominant activity. However, public confidence can be undermined when charities appear to prioritise political agendas over public benefit. This proposal seeks to prohibit any political activity, including lobbying, to maintain the sectorâs integrity.
3. Policy Objectives
Prevent charities from engaging in political activity or lobbying to preserve their focus on public benefit.
Ensure charity status is reserved for organisations dedicated to apolitical, charitable purposes.
Strengthen compliance through Charity Commission oversight and enforcement.
4. Proposed Measures
a. Definition of Political Activity and Lobbying
Political activity includes campaigning for changes to law or government policy, supporting political parties, or influencing public opinion on legislative matters.
Lobbying includes direct engagement with policymakers to influence decisions, as defined under the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014.
b. Eligibility for Charity Status
Organisations engaging in any political activity or lobbying will be ineligible to register as charities.
Existing charities found to engage in such activities will have their charitable status revoked.
c. Charity Commission Enforcement
The Charity Commission will conduct regular compliance checks, including reviews of annual reports, public communications, and financial expenditures, to identify political activity.
A dedicated reporting mechanism will allow public and stakeholder complaints about suspected breaches.
Penalties for non-compliance include status revocation and potential fines for misuse of charitable funds.
5. Legislative Changes Required
To implement this policy, Parliament would need to:
Amend the Charities Act 2011: Revise Section 2 to exclude political activity or lobbying from charitable purposes entirely, removing the current allowance for such activities when ancillary to charitable aims. A new clause would mandate revocation of status for non-compliance.
Create New Legislation: Introduce a Charities (Political Activity Prohibition) Act to define prohibited activities, outline Charity Commission powers for enforcement, and establish compliance check protocols.
Amend the Transparency of Lobbying Act 2014: Extend its scope to explicitly include charities, ensuring alignment with lobbying restrictions.
Update Charity Commission Guidance (CC9): Reflect the new prohibition in guidance on campaigning and political activity, replacing existing permissions with a clear ban.
6. Expected Outcomes
Enhanced public trust in charities as apolitical entities focused on public benefit.
Clearer separation between charitable and political organisations.
Mitigation: Non-charitable organisations can continue advocacy without tax benefits, ensuring freedom of speech.
Risk: Administrative burden on the Charity Commission.
Mitigation: Allocate funding for additional compliance staff and technology.
Risk: Legal challenges from affected charities.
Mitigation: Ensure legislation is precise and aligns with existing charity law principles.
8. Conclusion
This policy will reinforce the charitable sectorâs commitment to public benefit by prohibiting political activity and lobbying. By amending existing legislation and empowering the Charity Commission, the proposal ensures charities remain impartial, maintaining public confidence and sector integrity.
Just so we are clear, this is an extension of current laws, which basically state that âcharities cannot engage in political activity unless it is in furtherance of their charitable objectsâ and âno charity can be set up purely for political campaigning.â
I can see a boundary problem here. For example, Shelter, the main homelessness charity, as I understand it does some lobbying work to encourage the Government to build more houses or make the rental market better (Iâm deliberately not passing judgment on their ideas). Under this proposal, they couldnât do that anymore, but my question is where is that line?
Could they commission and release data on homelessness?
Could they fund research into preventing homelessness?
The same could be said for Cancer Research UK, this proposal would block them from pointing out mistakes that the NHS makes, or treatments that it should adopt because otherwise CR might lose charitable status.
As someone who was a trustee of a multi-million-pound charity for a few years, I can assure you that the trustees did a lot to work out where that boundary was and steer well clear of it. Often, the problem came from rouge employees or volunteers who you only caught when it was too late.
No policy is without some form of harm, and in my view the potential harm caused by this policy is dwarfed by the benefits. Specifically, I believe, Charity status is abused by overtly political entities to manipulate the government and public discourse to add legitimacy to their manipulations, whilst hoodwinking the public into believing they are benevolent, when it is frequently not the case.
Essentially, in your specific examples, with this policy in place, both Shelter and Cancer Research UK are free to establish Limited Companies and pay corporation tax on their lobbying. Just like every other person and entity that is free to engage in political discourse.
I entirely agree that far too many organisations get charitable status with dubious objects which are scantly in the public interest, and I agree that charitable status gets abused for the halo it seems to give off, so I am happy that we are talking about it!
However, in these cases, you are wrong that they could set up a limited company to talk for the charity. The rules on charities owning commercial incorporated companies are complex, but basically, they boil down to âthe company must make money through commercial activity for the charity.â What you seem to have described, however, is more akin to giving their subsidiary charitable funds in order for that subsidiary to do work on the fringes of politics. That would, under this proposal (and I believe current charitable finance law) be illegal.
Even if the company was for-profit and was generating its own income, it would still be illegal. The rules around the misuse of charitable funds would make it so that the company can only spend funds on raising funds for the charity, and sinking money into political work that the charity cannot do would be a breach of charitable finance rules.
Another thing that has come to mind is that if charities could not be a little political, when Reeves announced her budget, all of the hospices may not have been able to come out and say that they cannot afford to pay the NIC increase and may be forced to shut down if Labour did this. I feel like the ability to get that early warning, rather than the charitable provision just stopping, is incredibly important.
In sum, I actually think that the better thing to do is to re-work rules around charitable objects, what is and is not permissible, and what is and is not in the public interest. For example, Studentsâ Unions should not be charities, it is insane that an organisation set up to lobby a charity (universities are all charities) should be a charity itself. We can also start looking at Stonewall, Hope not Hate, the charities behind Adolescence, and go from there.
I appreciate the nuance you are introducing to the subject, and appreciate the layers of complexity that may be present. However, I will (for the sake of argument) argue from the maximal interpretation of the policy.
With regards to current legality - as this is a hypothetical policy, we can change any and all legislation required to get it to work. No current legislation should be a blocker.
To be clear, my point about Shelter or Cancer Research UK creating a Limited Company was that, if they wish to engage in politics, they would have to create a revenue generating company and it would it would not (as is currently the case) be able to use charitable donations to fund it.
In short, they would be forced to create a profit generating, real company, that has nothing to do with the charity in order to engage in political discourse. I appreciate this is onerous and prohibitive, but that is the intent.
It would seem I am arguing to throw the baby out with the bath water, however in my view - the baby is fairly useless anyway, I havenât seen any significant, important or otherwise meaningful changes emanate from a Charity, I have only seen self serving, overtly left wing, âlong marchâ nonsense from them. Whatâs more, many are shelters and trust funds for left wing political activists. The aim of the policy (in my view) is to directly attack the funding of political left, and to disrupt the leftsâ ability to function.
I appreciate this view, but I think that your viewpoint is marred by the big corporate charities. Iâve mentioned hospices here already, charities that quietly raise money to help care for the elderly and keep them out of the NHS, which are absolutely vital. Most zoos in the UK are established as charitable enterprises, not owned by anyone, but just there to help with conservation work and to educate children about animals. Many local communities have local organisations which are established as charitable bodies in order to protect the character of the area. Many near me raise money to plant flowers, maintain outdoor green spaces and make the community a nicer place to live.
This is why, instead of strict political neutrality (which I feel is impossible), I prefer a tightening of what charitable objects are allowed, tighter enforcement of current rules, and a âdo you need to be a charity to do what you are trying to doâ test.
You can find the definition of being a public benefit is here. Firstly, the use of a UN convention to me would make this fail a ânational interestâ standard. Further, the benefit standard need to be ânot based on personal viewsâ, which equality initiatives absolutely are. Further, it is entirely clear that this charity is about and set up for political campaigning. This should invalidate it. Political lobbying should be incidental, not foundational.
In sum, this is a charity with charitable objects that are not in the public interest. It this the Charity Commission failing as a regulator which is allowing this situation to happen.
@Dr_Taspher thank you for the detail, that is very useful. I accept the points you have made. I believe it is fair to say the heart of the issue is the Charity Commission isnât enforcing the rules appropriately?
In my view that is unsurprising, it is a Quango that is most likely entirely captured by the left.
Therefore, effectively if we were to enforce the existing rules, we would essentially be asking a captured Quango to do its job. I regrettably believe that would change nothing.
Yes, the CC, like many of the quangos, is chronically woke. It lets charities that agree with it get away with things, and charities that donât are forced to stop existing.
You are entirely correct, asking them to actually do their job would do little. But it also probably means that giving them new rules to enforce would do little too. It might make sense to actually entirly reform the charity system to have special classes of charity for different functions that we think should be charitable (hospices, community groups, animal charities?), and remove the concept of a generic charity.
It is worth remembering that there are 170,924 charities in just England and Wales, this isnât to say that we should do nothing, but I think that it is very important to review the entire sector before working out what needs excising and the best scalpel to do it.
@Dr_Taspher Yes, that sounds entirely reasonable. I would add that I believe caution is valid, however I hope it wouldnât prevent effective change, as reviewing the entire sector could introduce prohibitive levels of complexity for a policy. Which in essence is an attempt to strike a blow on our political opponents.
Considering your depth of knowledge in this area, I wonder if you would consider writing a policy outline, in addition to mine?
I fully understand the fear that nothing changes because of overcaution, we just had that for the past 14 years of Tory rule, being so obsessed about seeming nice that they didntâ actually do anything conservative.
Iâll be honest, I donât consider myself an expert on charities by any means, but I donât think that anyone can be given how varied they are. I can however look into whipping something up in my free time. I wouldnât expect anything until June though, as Iâm a little busy right now and it would take a while to do enough research to feel like I was producing something solid.
Interestingly, I believe one of the greatest strengths of what weâre building here is the collective wisdom of individuals who donât claim to be experts. By crowdsourcing ideas, we can shape policies that future leaders might adopt and refine.
Given how the âexpert classâ has undermined its own credibility in recent decades, it feels to me incumbent upon those of us without formal expertise to propose solutions where those âexpertsâ have fallen short.
In my view, our power lies not in credentials but in our ability to recognise problems and, more importantly, to offer practical solutions.
Hi there both, i have read your debate with interest and particuarly the conclusion which seemed to becthe law isnt necessarily the problem but its enforcement by the charity commission. However i think it would be of benefit to clarify the rules around politcal activities of charities.
Another aspect of this to me is funding! It appears to mecthat a lot of charites get their funds from various parts of government. I am not aware of current rules around this but it strikes me that any charity that derives more than 50% of its funding from public money is not a charity but simply another part of government. This could also apply to charities who are paid by government organisations for their services, eg. Stonewall and Common Purpose. This might be another way of cracking this particular nut.
You are certainly correct that charities getting government money is an issue. Another issue can sometimes be charities competing with each other (competition in the charity space can often be counterproductive).
I would hope that by clearing up the rules and enforcement of who can get charity status, charities which are inclined to be political can be excised, and we donât need extra rules on political activity from charities.
