Hansard

I declare an interest as chair of Heart Research UK’s heart of Scotland appeal board.

As other members did at the start of the debate, I thank our clerks on the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, who have helped us with the passage of the bill. I also thank those who have given evidence to the committee. It is often humbling, when I meet with charities and the third sector across Scotland, to see the work that they are undertaking in our communities and how vital that work is. As a country, we would not be who we are without them.

Our charities have a combined income of more than £15 billion and employ more than 200,000 people, which shows us why the bill is so important. Parts of it are concerning, however—I refer especially to the points that have been raised with regard to our churches and faith groups and the potential unintended consequences of the bill. I hope that, as other members have said, the cabinet secretary will be mindful of those.

Although we have welcomed the one-year delay, the concerns about bureaucracy and additional costs are still very much there. I hope that we will see those issues taken on board, and any necessary amendments lodged in the future, in order to prevent such issues costing our charities any money, because that money needs to go to the front line during difficult times. The arguments put forward at stages 1, 2 and 3 still stand.

The Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 has been in place for some 18 years, so it has been necessary to modernise it in order to ensure that our charities operate more transparently. We welcome that, and the fact that the bill brings our charities law in line with reforms in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, as my colleague Jeremy Balfour said, it has felt as if the bill has been inspired by OSCR.

There is now an opportunity, with regard to potential reforms coming forward, to do something radically different, and I welcome the fact that the cabinet secretary will now work to put together a proposed review during the rest of the current session of Parliament. That is important, given what it could mean; Paul O’Kane outlined some potential reforms that the Labour Party would like to see around the regulation of charities. However, we also need to look at the overregulation of charities in Scotland.

During the stage 1 debate, John Mason, who I do not think is in the chamber, made some important points that could be taken forward for the fully volunteer-run charities that we have in Scotland. Charities that have an income of less than £25,000 face the same bureaucracy and regulation as charities with thousands of employees and millions of pounds of income. I do not think that that is fair, and I hope that in future parliamentary sessions we have the opportunity to look at the deregulation of how charities in Scotland operate and the opportunities that that could present for resources to go to the issues that charities want to campaign and make a difference on.

That is why the consultation did not attract as much engagement from those charities. They are looking after village halls and church halls across our country. They are small charities and do not have the individuals to take on those roles. I hope that, in the future, a potential consultation, or the proposed review, will look at that issue, which could realise the potential of many small charities across our country.

We will support the bill at decision time, as we have outlined. At this stage, we are content with what the bill will do, but it has to present an opportunity for us all to look at how we support our charities. The third sector in Scotland has done so much that we can be proud of, especially during the pandemic. I hope that that is the learning that we can take forward from the bill, so that we as a Parliament look at how we can do more to help our third sector in the future.