The Charity Commission is being used by politicians as a tool to silence criticism, the umbrella body for Scottish charities has said.

John Downie, head of public affairs at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, was speaking after Conor Burns, Conservative MP for Bournemouth West, last week reported Oxfam to the Commission for being “overtly political” by campaigning against poverty in the UK.

Downie told Third Force News, his organisation’s news service for Scottish charities, that Oxfam was within its rights to campaign on poverty, and the complaint highlighted a worrying trend of MPs trying to use the Commission as a tool to “muzzle” charities which disagreed with them by making complaints, and hoping that it scared those charities off.

He said: “Rather than being concerned about charities campaigning on areas they have a complete right to campaign on – such as Oxfam on poverty – maybe we should be more concerned about the Charity Commission being used as a front for the government.

“Oxfam is completely correct to say that highlighting poverty should be non-party political.”

He said the government was “threatening the independence of the third sector because it doesn’t want attention drawn to issues such as poverty – where it has taken completely the wrong approach.”