Cabinet Office Third Sector

Charities Bill background

The Regulatory Impact Assessment that accompanied the Charities Bill can be downloaded in chapters:

• Chapter 1 – Summary [PDF 80KB, 8pages]
• Chapter 2 – Structural reforms [PDF 240KB, 37KB]
• Chapter 3 – Public charitable collections [PDF 224KB, 42 pages]
• Chapter 4 – Exempt charities [PDF 141KB, 26KB]
• Chapter 5 – Excepted charities [PDF 171KB, 27 pages]

The progress of the Charities Bill

November 2006

• The Lords consideration of commons amendments took place on 7 November 2006, with Royal Assent signalled the following day (8 November 2006).

October 2006

• The Bill had its report and Third reading in the House of Commons on 25 October.

July 2006

• The Bill was considered by a Standing committee in the House of Commons between 4 July and 13 July 2006

June 2006

• Second reading of the Charities Bill took place in the House of Commons on Monday 26 June 2006

November 2005

• The final stage of the Bill in the House of Lords – Third reading – was on 9 November

October 2005

• Report stage of the Bill was on 12 and 18 October 2005

July 2005

• Second and final day of Committee was on 12 July. The Government agreed to consider a number of other proposals made by peers for changes to the Bill

June 2005

• Second reading of the Bill
• First day of Committee was on 28 June

May 2005

• Bill fell when the general election was called
• Bill was in the Queen's Speech on 17 May 2005 and reintroduced into the House of Lords on 18 May. This version of the Bill included all the Government amendments tabled for Report Stage, which was not reached before the General Election was called

January 2005

• Dummy regulations for governing the new legal form for charities, the Charitable Incorporated Organisation [PDF 323KB, 30 pages], proposed by the Bill, were published

December 2004

• Government's response to the Joint Committee's report was published
• Charities Bill was introduced to the House of Lords and first published

September 2004

• Joint Committee's report and recommendations [external website] were published

May 2004

• Draft Charities Bill [PDF 508KB, 104 pages] was published
• Joint Committee of Commons and Lords scrutinised the Bill. Evidence submitted to the Joint Committee

July 2003

• Charities and Not–for–Profits: A modern legal framework was the Government's response to ‘Private Action, Public benefit: a Review of Charities and the wider not–for–profit sector. It is also available in Welsh [PDF 150KB, 41KB]
• Government's Response to the Strategy Unit's recommendations on Industrial and Provident Societies was also published

September 2002

• Prime Minister's Strategy Unit published a report on proposals for charity law reform. Private action, Public benefit: a review of charities and the wider not–for–profit sector

Previous Charities Acts

These are copies of Charities Acts as enacted. Note that they may have been amended by subsequent legislation.

• Charities Act 1992 [external website]
• Charities Act 1993 [external website]