Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Report stage
Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking on behalf of my noble friend Lady Merron, who signed Amendment 4 but is unable to participate in today’s debate. I should explain that one of our concerns has been a lack of clarity around future consultation. We have already had some discussion this afternoon about consultation, and, of course, it was raised by a number of colleagues during the Bill’s Second Reading and featured fairly heavily during the debates in Grand Committee.

On the face of it, we do not really understand why Amendment 4, which lists a variety of topics and proposed participants, is not acceptable to the Government, but we are nevertheless grateful to the Minister for tabling Amendment 3. For that reason, I agreed to co-sign it on behalf of our Benches. That amendment ensures that there will have to be a full public consultation, as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, has already described, which will have to take place before uses for dormant assets funds are determined in regulations.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett for tabling Amendment 5, which seeks to ensure that future consultations include consideration of the merits of establishing community wealth funds. This is a good addition, and we hope that the Minister can address this point explicitly in his response—not least, of course, because we have passed and supported the community wealth fund amendment this afternoon.

I am therefore looking for further reassurance from the Minister that the public consultation will be run in accordance with Cabinet Office best practice, including the Secretary of State being proactive when engaging with charities and social enterprises, rather than merely posting a notice online. We are satisfied by the Government’s amendment, but we would like to see them go further. I guess that our amendment is inviting them to flesh out exactly how they see this working in some more detail.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 4, to which I have added my name, and Amendment 5 in my name, which augments the original amendment by ensuring that the consultation makes specific reference to community wealth funds as a potential beneficiary of dormant assets.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett for their support—and to the Government for listening to at least some of what we said in Committee about consultation so that, as we have heard, the Bill now makes clear that there will be a public consultation. I am very grateful to the Minister for, first, finding the time to have a word about this yesterday and, secondly, for confirming on the record that the consultation will last for at least 12 weeks, which I and others pressed for in Committee.

I will simply speak to Amendment 5, about the explicit reference to community wealth funds. When this was raised in Committee, the then Minister’s initial response was that she was unable to give any reassurance because:

“We need a collective agreement on what goes into any consultation document”.—[Official Report, 23/6/21; col. GC 99.]


But when I read that in Hansard, I realised that I did not really understand what she meant. Collective among whom? Could the Minister please explain? Could we not collectively agree today that the consultation should include specific reference to community wealth funds because, otherwise, many of those consulted might not have heard of them and only those who already know about them would be in a position to support them?

In doing so, I do not think it excludes other possible uses of the fund. The Minister raised this fear in his response to Amendment 1, but having a consultation that does not put out some options will not be terribly useful. Therefore, all we are asking is that he makes clear that this is one of the options and that the consultation would explain what community wealth funds are.

When I pressed the then Minister, she made a commitment to consider the community wealth fund proposal

“as we review the range of questions that go into the consultation.”—[Official Report, 23/6/21; col. GC 100.]

Can the Minister reconfirm that commitment? Regardless of what happens to Amendment 1 when it is sent to the Commons, it is important that the consultation on the use of the new dormant assets includes explicit reference to a proposal that has such widespread support from national civil society organisations.