Hansard

On behalf of the Scottish Greens, I welcome the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Bill, and I am pleased to be able to say a few words in this afternoon’s debate. I refer members to my entry in the register of interests.

As someone who was not directly involved in the committee scrutiny of the bill, I would like to thank the Social Justice and Social Security Committee for its detailed work on what is a somewhat technical bill. I would also like to thank the bill team and all those organisations—including charities and legal organisations—that have contributed in various ways to the work of the committee, and for providing information and briefings to us as MSPs.

Charities—the third sector—play a vital role in our communities and our lives. As I said at stage 1, they often support us at some of the most difficult or challenging times in our lives. They provide life-saving services, advocacy, constructive critique, resilience, fundraising and so much more. The hard work of staff and volunteers often goes unseen and, sadly, is often undervalued, but our society would not function without those services and supports, and the often selfless and unrecognised work that so many contribute to our collective wellbeing.

Therefore, I would like to place on record my thanks to all those charities—particularly those in the north-east—that seek to do that work, every day, in circumstances that are becoming increasingly challenging.

We have a responsibility to ensure that the regulatory framework within which charities operate is up to date and fit for purpose. Scotland’s charity law has not been significantly amended since 2005 and, as we have heard, the bill aims to update the current system of charity regulation by improving transparency and accountability, enhancing public trust and improving the efficiency of OSCR’s operations.

Although the bill does not represent a full review of charity law in Scotland—like Paul O’Kane and others, I wish that it went further—I welcome the cabinet secretary’s comments about the Government’s plans for a review that takes all charity regulation and legislation into account. I look forward to that. Collectively, we must ensure that that review is wide ranging and that it considers how we can support the sector in a future that will be very different from the world that we inhabited in 2005.

I have spoken previously about the need for charitable concessions for a wider range of activities that are goods in and of themselves—a range of activities that goes wider than the current definition of charitable purposes. Greens would also want to see explicit inclusion of each of the protected characteristics as described in our current equality legislation. However, that is for the review that is to come.

I would like to highlight that we all share responsibility for the provision of clearer information to ensure that the sector as a whole is aware of the provisions in the legislation that we will pass later today. There must be a shared understanding of the implications of the bill for charities and regulators alike. Given the nature of the discussions and debates on the bill to date, I have no doubt that we will all work together to make that a reality, and I look forward to doing that with colleagues from across the chamber.