UK government plans new powers to close charities that “promote violence or hatred”
Howard Lake | 9 March 2026 | News
The government is planning to strengthen the Charity Commission’s powers to close charities “that promote extremism” in ways that nevertheless “protect the vast majority of the sector delivering positive work”.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has asked officials to work with the regulator to speed up the process for investigating charities suspected of engaging in extremist behaviour. This will include “strengthening its powers” to close them down if needed, with faster decision-making and a review of the appeals process.
Further measures under consideration include:
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- mandatory trustee ID verification
- the digitisation of charity accounts
- a strengthening of local authority powers to issue fines and take other enforcement action to tackle unlicensed street fundraising.
New consultation
The planned measures are separate to a new consultation launching shortly, which will trial plans to ban automatically individuals with a criminal conviction for hate crime from serving as charity trustees or senior managers.
It will also consult on plans to strengthen the Commission’s powers to disqualify individuals where there is evidence they have promoted violence or hatred.
The plans, according to the DCMS, are part of wider plans being announced today which will “actively renew the UK’s social contract by promoting national pride”, establish clearer expectations around integration, and take action “to bring communities together”.
These plans are designed to improve social cohesion, and build on the Civil Society Covenant launched last summer. They are meant actively to renew the UK’s social contract by “promoting national pride, establishing clearer expectations around integration, and taking action to bring communities together”.
Scale of the issues?
The Charity Commission is responsible for regulating around 170,000 registered charities in England and Wales (as of September 2024), with a total income of £98.2 billion.
In the two and one third years since October 2023, the Commission has opened over 400 regulatory cases for hate speech, and made around 70 referrals (if it were one per charity of 0.04% of charities) to police where criminal offences may have been committed.
Hijacking a good name
Announcing the plans Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said:
“Charities are the lifeblood of our communities, and we will not allow extremists to hijack their good name.
“By giving the Charity Commission the teeth it needs to act fast and decisively, we will close the door on those who exploit charitable status to spread hate, and open a new chapter that gives the sector the protection it deserves.”
“This is a vital step in our ongoing work of national renewal and a Britain built for all.”
Two examples
The DCMS gave two examples of problems that the Charity Commission’s proposed new powers could help address better and/or faster.
1: Expanding discretionary disqualification powers to include conduct which promotes or encourages violence
In October 2023 a then serving trustee was charged with assault by beating and possession of an offensive weapon (knuckleduster) while attending a demonstration in London. In November 2023 the individual entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. The individual was disqualified from charity trusteeship by Order of the Commission in 2024.
Under the current rules, the Commission had to justify this decision by arguing the behaviour had damaged public trust in charities – “an indirect and time-consuming route”.
Under the proposed new powers, the Commission could instead act directly against anyone who promotes or encourages violence. The result would be “faster action, and a clearer message that this kind of behaviour has no place in the charitable sector”.
Example 2: Expanding discretionary disqualification powers to include individuals deprived of their citizenship
In 2017 a trustee of charitable funds was deprived of their UK citizenship by the Home Secretary because it was assessed that they had travelled to Syria and is or was “aligned to an AQ (Al-Qaida) aligned group”. AQ is a proscribed terrorist organisation. The individual had acted as a representative of a number of charities and received donated goods and funds from them intended to support those in need in Syria. The Commission took action to disqualify this individual.
If the proposed powers were in place at this time, the Commission “would not have had to rely on arguing the conduct was likely to be damaging to public trust and confidence in charities”. Instead it would have been able to base its disqualification decision on the Home Secretary’s exclusion decision, “resulting in a faster outcome”.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.