Charities that support politically or culturally contentious causes should expect their charitable status to come under regulatory scrutiny even if they are acting within the law, according to the outgoing chair of the Charity Commission.
The Tory peer Tina Stowell, who is stepping down after three years in the post, warned charities against being “captured” by unnamed people who wish to push a partial view of the world and use charity platforms to wage war on “political enemies”.
The commission has recently pursued high-profile investigations against charities after Tory MPs complained they had strayed into “ideological dogma” or a “woke agenda” on issues such as race equality.
“Charities can challenge things, charities can shake things up, they can even change the world, but they can’t and they shouldn’t go out of their way to divide people,” Lady Stowell said in a speech on Thursday hosted by the Social Market Foundation.
Investigations were launched against the National Trust over its publication of a report on some of its properties’ past links to slavery, and against the children’s charity Barnardo’s which was accused of “political activism” for publishing a blogpost on racial inequality and white privilege. Both investigations are continuing.
Charity figures responded furiously to the speech, accusing Stowell of demonstrating the very attitudes she was warning charities against. One charity leader told the Guardian: “Lady Stowell warns charities against being divisive and yet she is drawing them into a culture war by saying they can’t legitimately make a stand on issues.”
Stowell, who some believe lost the trust of the charity sector after using rightwing newspapers to warn charities against getting involved in politics or “culture wars”, said charities had to be “more respectful of public expectations” of what they were for.
“If charity is to remain at the forefront of our national life, it cannot afford to be captured by those who want to advance or defend their own view of the world to the exclusion of all others,” she said. “Charities can adapt to the latest social and cultural trends but there is a real risk of generating unnecessary controversy and division by picking sides in a battle some have no wish to fight.”
“Many seek out charities as an antidote to politics and division, not as another front on which to wage a war against political enemies, and they have the right to be respected.”
Charity Commission guidance states that campaigning and political activity “can be legitimate and valuable activities” for charities to undertake within limits that require charities not to have a political purpose and to be independent of political parties.
Asked after her speech whether charities with a “political agenda” should lose their charitable status, Stowell suggested that party politics was too narrow a definition of the limits of charity political activity. “Not everything which is contentious is defined as a particular party’s position on something,” she said.
“So in that respect what charities have to be mindful of is there are risks to adopting or getting involved in particular sorts of movement or causes that are outside of their objects and then they start to make people question whether or not they really are entitled to retain that status of charity.”
Stowell was appointed as the Charity Commission’s chair in 2018 despite a unanimous parliamentary select committee recommendation that her nomination should be rejected on the grounds that she lacked experience of both charity and regulatory roles.
Responding to her speech, Sue Tibballs, of the campaigning charity the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, said: “Throughout her tenure Tina Stowell has been a leading voice amongst those who accuse charities of stoking ‘culture wars’ by not reflecting public opinion. Charities by law, however, are required to act in the public interest, not to reflect public opinion.”
Andrew Purkiss, a former Charity Commission board member, said it was important that Stowell’s successor as commission chair focused on what the law said charities were allowed to do, not what he or she thought they ought to do. “The guidance is clear: charities are allowed to be political with a small ‘p’ if we are in pursuit of our charitable objects,” he said.