Churches Legal Advisory Service (CLAS)

CLAS Circular 2024 - 16

Autumn Budget Update

National Minimum Wage
Employer’s National Insurance Contributions
Rents for Social Housing
Business Rates
Charity Compliance Measures
Vat on Private School Fees
Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme

CLAS Circular 2024 - 15

Burial and cremation law consultation
Evidence required to claim PAYE (P87) employment expenses
Employment Rights Bill
Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund Wave 3 open for applications
Help with tax issues for public bodies
Charging and reclaiming VAT on goods and services related to private school fees

CLAS Circular 2024 - 14

Law Commission consultation on burial and cremation law in England and Wales
Equality and Human Rights Commission consultation on updated Code of Practice
Renters' Rights Bill
Consultation on Building Safety Levy proposals
Registering an unincorporated association for Corporation Tax
Charitable non-domestic rates relief for private schools
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-6 Consultation

CLAS Circular 2024 - 13

Decision-making for charity trustees
HMRC: Rates and thresholds for employers 2024 to 2025
Northern Ireland Executive: Draft Programme for Government 2024-2027
Renters' Rights Bill
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill
OSCR: consultation on changes to charity law

CLAS Circular 2024 - 12

The Charity Commission praises constructive campaigning during General Election
Charity Inquiry: Salvation Proclaimers Ministries Limited
Church of England parochial fees
New Minister for Faith
Community Ownership Fund round 4
OSCR publishes Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24
Wales: Outcome of the consultation on changes to the Council Tax Reduction Scheme

CLAS Circular 2024 - 11

Charity Commission statement in response to riots and public disorder
Charity Commission: guidance for local authorities on compliance with trustee duties
HM Treasury: updated guidance for charity trustees
Changes to the Minimum Wage calculation
Rural Needs Act (Northern Ireland) 2016: review
Proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework and the planning system
The new Welsh Government

CLAS Circular 2024 - 10

Charity Commission refreshes meetings guidance for the Zoom era
Charity banking
Employment (Allocation of Tips) Regulations
Department of Culture, Media, and Sport Ministerial Team
Housing and planning
Consultation on National Planning Policy Framework reforms
Fairer Workplaces Fund
OSCR Reporter
Draft financial legislation
VAT on school fees

CLAS: King's Speech, 17 July 2024

In the King's Speech today, the following announcements on the new Government's legislative programme were made, which may be of interest to members:

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill: inter alia, “to modernise the asylum and immigration system, establishing a new Border Security Command and delivering enhanced counter terror powers to tackle organised immigration crime”
Children’s Wellbeing Bill: “to raise standards in education and promote children’s wellbeing” by, inter alia, “keeping children safe, happy and rooted in their communities and schools by strengthening multi-agency child protection and safeguarding arrangements, requiring free breakfast clubs in every primary school and introducing legislation to limit the number of branded items of uniform and PE kits that a school can require”.
Draft Conversion Practices Bill: “to ban conversion practices”; however, the Government is clear that “any ban must not cover legitimate psychological support, treatment, or non-directive counselling. It must also respect the important role that teachers, religious leaders, parents and carers can have in supporting those exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity”
Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill: will enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people and introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for larger employers (those with 250+ employees)
Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill: will implement the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 and enact the remaining Law Commission recommendations on leasehold enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents and remove the threat of forfeiture as a means of ensuring compliance with a lease agreement.
Employment Rights Bill: “to introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights” – inter alia, banning exploitative zero-hour contracts, ending ‘Fire and Rehire’ and ‘Fire and Replace’, and making parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal available from day 1.
English Devolution Bill: to give new powers to metro mayors and combined authorities, which “will support local growth plans that bring economic benefit to communities”.
Mental Health Bill: “to modernise the Mental Health Act so it is fit for the twenty-first century”: it “takes forward the vast majority of Professor Sir Simon Wessley’s 2017 recommendations for legislative reform and includes a wide range of changes to shift the balance of power from the system to the patient”.
Pension Schemes Bill: “to increase the amount available for pension savers” and prevent people from “losing track of their pension pots through the consolidation of Defined Contribution individual deferred small pension pots”.
Planning and Infrastructure Bill: will introduce changes to the planning system “to accelerate the delivery of high-quality infrastructure and housing”, by “streamlining the delivery process for critical infrastructure” and “further reforming compulsory purchase compensation rules to ensure that compensation paid to landowners is fair but not excessive”.
Renters’ Rights Bill: “to give greater rights and protections to people renting their homes, including ending no fault evictions and reforming grounds for possession”.
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill: will require venues and local authorities to take steps to prepare for the possibility of a terror attack. The proposals in the accompanying notes suggest that, as in the Bill which fell in the last Parliament, there will be “standard” and “enhanced” tiers of premises, with a fairly light-touch approach to the former
Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill: extends the provisions of the 2015 Act for a further period (unspecified) to ensure that female bishops enter the House of Lords sooner than they normally would.

Removing the VAT exemption on private schools and the proposal for a new Council of the Nations and Regions were both mentioned in the King's Speech, but no accompanying draft legislation was published. We assume that the removal of the VAT exemption will be included in the next Finance Bill.