Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Lord Polak Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Fleet on her terrific maiden speech. It reminded me of my school days in Liverpool, at King David High School, where music was key. We had 500 pupils and four orchestras; in fact, when a new pupil arrived and they were not holding a violin case, we knew that they were a pianist.

I also congratulate my noble friend the Minister on her introduction of the Bill this afternoon and refer the House to my interests as set out in the register. I will focus my brief remarks on the benefits that the Bill can bring. Like other noble Lords, I am grateful to the organisations that have sent in information. I commend them all on the work they undertake to keep noble Lords updated and informed.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, I was particularly struck by the material I received from KickStart Money—a coalition of savings and investment firms with an important mission that I fully support. The goal is simple and clear: to ensure that every primary school-age child leaves school at the age of 11 having received a high-quality and effective financial education. The coalition of supporters of KickStart Money was brought together by the Investing and Saving Alliance in response to research which found that habits and attitudes towards money can be formed in children as young as seven, thus making education at a young age vital to their future financial capability.

Just a few weeks ago, KickStart Money was fortunate to have had a meeting with the right honourable Gavin Williamson MP, the Secretary of State for Education, to discuss how financial education at primary school level helps to form positive attitudes towards money and establish important saving habits for future life. KickStart Money also won the Good Money Award last December, at the 2020 Better Society Awards, for its work in championing early-intervention financial education and funding vital money management lessons for almost 19,000 primary-aged children, delivered by MyBnk.

The Bill, which the Government have brought forward, is to be welcomed and provides an exciting opportunity to educate young people. The Bill will rightly expand the dormant assets scheme across the financial sector to make, as we have heard, potentially just under £900 million available for good causes—and clearly there must be more. What better cause could there be than using some of the funds to ensure that all primary school children receive that high-quality and effective financial education? It seems to me that the lost assets of those who have not managed their money effectively should be used to ensure that the next generation builds strong money-management skills and positive saving habits. In fact, I suggest that it is deeply appropriate.

As a result of the economic impact, more than one in four UK adults has low financial resilience. That comes from the FCA’s Financial Lives survey of February 2021. It also seems that the pandemic has had an impact on the younger generation, where six in 10 young people are saying that Covid-19 has made them more anxious about money issues. Research by the Money and Pensions Service has shown that money habits are formed at the age of seven, as I said, and evaluation of KickStart Money’s financial education programmes has shown how money management lessons can close the gap in financial capability, levelling up the playing field between those who receive some form of financial education at home and those who do not.

I hope that my noble friend the Minister will agree that this type of education is vital and will find a way to ensure that the opportunity is not missed to use the assets of financial mismanagement to create a society where young people can be given tools and skills at an early stage to prevent people falling into debt or financial vulnerability by focusing these dormant assets to ensure that primary schoolchildren develop a positive money mindset as early as possible.