THERE was a lengthy debate in July ir/thejHouse of Lords on Charities and Charity Law initiated by Lord Beaumont of Whitley. The following are a few excerpts from various speeches which may be useful for guidance and for quotation where appropriate: Lord Beaumont quoted the following sentence from the report of the Charity Commissioners for the year 1969: 'No organisation can be a charity and at the same time include among its purposes the object of bringing influence to bear directly or indirectly on Parliament to change the general law of the land.' Baroness Macleod of Borve, referring to her work as chairman of a juvenile court, said: 'I am quite certain that if some of the young people who came before me had been more involved in helping other people, then perhaps they would not have made my list rather longer than it usually is.' Earlier the Baroness said: 'I wish to draw the attention of the Government to one tax which, if it were altered, could be of enormous benefit to charities, perhaps in the not too far distant future: I refer to the tax on Christmas cards. As all noble Lords will be aware, many charities, particularly the large ones, derive considerable profit from the sale of Christmas cards; but perhaps not everyone is aware that Christmas cards attract purchase tax at 96| per cent. This seems an extraordinarily high rate of purchase tax which, perhaps, in the fullness of time, could be reduced.' Lord Grenfell: 'Our charity organisations, through devoted workers and voluntary contributions, are saving our country thousands of millions of pounds . . . They care not for colour nor creed.' Lord Nathan: 'Seven-year covenants have grown up in a most extraordinary way and were certainly never created for the benefit of charities. It chanced that they developed in that direction. The fiscal convolutions involved and the administrative expense for the donor, the charity and the Revenue alike make this, so far as I know, a uniquely complex way of achieving what is comparatively simple. There is no tax advantage to the donor as some people seem to think. Indeed, as in most cases people have only earned income, entering into a covenant is an actual tax disadvantage. The advantage is simply that the charity recovers the income tax but not the surtax suffered by the donor.

'I feel that it is time for a radical review of the tax system now that the Green Papers have been issued, for some further consideration to be given to this matter and in particular to see whether it would be acceptable that a systemsimilar to that in force in the United States should be adopted under which a portion of a person's income could be given to a charity and that portion would be tax deductible. There is a point on the Green Paper on value added tax to which reference was earlier made and where I would hope that the Government would relieve charities from all value added tax except of course in their trading activities, if they have some. This could be very easily done, by treating them in the same way as an exporter, by zero rating.' Lord Balerno: 'We should adopt a better system than that of the seven-year covenant for making donations to charity. We should adopt a system of tax relief on production of receipts from charities, which are deducted from the total income liable to be taxed. Of course, there must be a ceiling on the amount for which this can be done.

'I think the noble Lord mentioned that in the United States and Canada, where this system works, the ceiling is of the order of 10 per cent of total income. Such an alteration, I submit, would be very much more productive than the seven-year covenant; would be a greater incentive to donors and would give greater net return to charity. It has the virtue, which again the noble Lord mentioned, that it could greatly simplify the matter of tax collection.' Lord Belstead, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Education and Science: 'The spirit of charity and service is nowhere stronger in the community than in the younger generation.'.