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Endowment bill reappears in Lords
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A new attempt is being made to amend Lottery legislation to allow the Community Fund to make grants for endowments. A private members’ bill has been introduced into the House of Lords by the Norfolk-based peer Lord Walpole, and is scheduled to get its second reading on February 27.
Lord Walpole is resurrecting the same private members’ bill that was introduced by Ian Gibson MP last March into the Commons. That time around, the bill passed through its second reading and committee stages without amendment, but was stopped by the general election.
The bill aims to correct an anomaly that apparently results from the technical drafting of the original 1993 Lottery Act, in which the then National Lottery Charities Board was able to ‘make out of any money it receives grants for meeting the expenditure of charities’. Legal opinion seems agreed that an endowment fund cannot be regarded as the expenditure of a charity. (The other boards, however, were able to ‘fund or assist in funding’ projects.)
Dr Gibson was prompted by a Norfolk charity to tackle the anomaly last year. The bill had all-party support and unofficial government backing. Because Lord Walpole (a cross-bencher) is using exactly the same bill, he is hopeful that it will get rapid clearance through the Lords.