New Commission chair will tell charities to stop 'woke hunt for division', says Oliver Dowden

Mr Dowden’s comments in the Sunday Telegraph come after the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust’s announcement this week that it was renaming itself

The Churchill Fellowship while removing images of the former prime minister from its website.

The charity, which awards grants for Britons to pursue social and community causes, put out a statement denying it was seeking to disown the achievements of Britain’s Second World War leader but adding that many of his views on race were “widely seen as unacceptable today, a view that we share”.

Mr Dowden also highlighted a recent public consultation on moving a statue of Thomas Guy from the forecourt of the Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation on the grounds of his shares in the South Sea Company, which was involved in the slave trade.

The Culture Secretary wrote: “His role in founding one of the world’s finest hospitals was deemed entirely secondary to this share ownership. Three quarters of those who responded said the statue should remain in place, and yet they announced they were moving it anyway.

“This is just another example of a worrying trend in some charities that appear to have been hijacked by a vocal minority seeking to burnish their woke credentials.

"In so doing they not only distract charities from their core missions but also waste large amounts of time and money. I’m quite sure this is not what the millions of British people who donate to charities every year had intended their hard earned and thoughtfully donated cash to be spent on.

"Moreover, as we work as a country to emerge from the pandemic, we need our charities to be totally focussed on their important work. We don’t need them hunting for divisions in a way that serves neither their benefactors nor the country.

“The public’s trust depends on charities remaining true to their founding missions. The recruitment of a new Chair of the Charity Commission provides an opportunity for this refocus and resetting of the balance.

“I have instructed those leading the search to ensure that the new leader of the Commission will restore charities’ focus to their central purpose and empower Trustees to be robust.

"Candidates will be tested on how they will harness the oversight powers of the Commission to commence this rebalancing. And ministers will only select a candidate that can convince on these criteria. This is an important first step that will benefit not only the public but the charities themselves.”

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