Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barker and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Report stage
Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an important topic. It took quite a bit of our time in Committee, has been raised again today and runs as a thread through our concerns. We have had some discussion with the Minister between stages, and useful discussion it was.

We acknowledge that additionality has been built into Amendment 7 in the next group, but we are very sympathetic to the call from the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Barker, for the Secretary of State to certify as part of the regulation-making process that funds will indeed be on top of existing government commitments. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has made quite a compelling argument. Dormant assets are going to grow. There are many other sources of dormant assets not included within the current scheme. I could see a hungry Treasury, worried about the supply of funds in the future, seeking to make use of substitute funding from dormant assets. I think we will need to be thoroughly convinced by the words of the Minister this afternoon if he is to avoid us having a further Division.

If the Government have no plans to pull accounting tricks, I would have thought that there was no issue with accepting this amendment or perhaps introducing a new text either at Third Reading or when the Bill moves to the House of Commons to put this issue beyond doubt. That is what I am listening for this afternoon and hoping to hear from the noble Lord.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to add two points to those made by my noble friend Lady Kramer. It is right that in the next government amendment there is reference to a report and the additionality principle being included in that report. The reason why we drafted this amendment in the way we did was the requirement for the Secretary of State to certify the matter. One of the criticisms that was initially made of this Bill by the Delegated Powers Committee was the number of Henry VIII powers being assumed by the Minister.

The second reason is that the next government amendment refers to:

“Periodic review and report to Parliament”.


It does not say what those periods should be. Therefore, we are trying to deal with exactly the sort of scenario outlined by my noble friend Lady Kramer, where the Government suddenly dip into this back pocket of money and start to use it. That is the reason why it is there and why we think it is so important.