STATUS OF CHARITIES

Early day motion 17, tabled 24 November 1998 by Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat). Signed by 141 members.

That this House notes the statement made by the Committee of Public Accounts, in the introduction to the report issued on 2nd April 1998, that the Charity Commission has shown 'a lack of management grip', and the committee's accompanying statement that there was no evidence for the Charity Commission's view that abuse and maladministration are a minor problem in the world of charities; congratulates the Greater Manchester Police on the recent successful prosecution of charity collection crooks; welcomes the interest of the Charity Check system to combat charity collection fraud; notes the view of Somerfield Stores Ltd in February 1997 that, without that system, Somerfield might have had to cancel all charity collections on its premises; welcomes the new Charity Check facility allowing the results of all off-street collections to be published on the website; and recommends the managements of all premises where charity collections take place to adopt the practice of insisting beforehand on the presence of a recommendation, from a first-class source, on each relevant charity whose work is not already known to those managements, whether it has registered charity status or not, along the lines of the charity check system.

Signatures by party: Labour 84, Liberal Democrat 35, Conservative 9, Labour/Co-operative 7, Plaid Cymru 4, UUP 2.