Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I should first say that our amendment, signed by me and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, was an attempt to combine different aspects of previous amendments into a single text. The result is, as noble Lords can see, a fairly lengthy shopping list. The thing about shopping lists is that something is always forgotten; something always falls off the end. That makes their operability in legislation perhaps less than perfect.

We envisaged, in construct, that the amendment would cover what had happened during the relevant period and whether the funding was delivering on the scheme’s priorities. So, we are grateful—I am certainly very grateful—to the Minister for his constructive approach to discussions since taking up his post. I believe that Amendment 7 represents a fair compromise. I think the Minister has said the reports will combine information that was already available from other sources —annual reports et cetera—but also require the Secretary of State to go somewhat further, including by giving information on whether and how the additionality principle has been adhered to. We have heard in earlier debates how important that is.

We hoped to gain more from the Government, including more concrete data on the contribution that funds make to people and communities subject to high levels of deprivation and inequality, but I am sure that there will be further consideration of such issues in the other place, and perhaps in our debates here as well, as this legislation kicks in. I am impressed with the approach the Government have taken, and they have certainly listened to our Committee considerations, taking on board the core of what we are after. Nothing is ever perfect, but this goes a long way in the right direction. While I would have preferred our amendment, I was more than happy to sign up to the Government’s, as it represented real progress in the way we considered the Bill.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, as I am sure the Minister has noted, there were significant contributions about review in the earlier stages of the Bill. It is in that vein that these Benches worked with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, on Amendment 8. Like him, I still prefer some of the content of Amendment 8 and wish to try to establish how far the wording of the relevant bits of the amendment put forward by the Government delivers similar things. I appreciate the efforts which have been made, in the review amendments and concerning consultation but, as has already been aired by my noble friends, there are certain things which do not appear necessarily to carry through exactly as expected.

First, can the Government say whether their review can do everything envisaged by Amendment 8? Further, is there appetite to cover everything covered by Amendment 8? The first difference was on timing. The Minister said that they would broadly follow the three-year and five-year timing proposed in Amendment 8, which is one tick. The next big difference is whether the review will cover the worthiness of the expenditure and whether—as in subsection (2)(b) of the new clause proposed by Amendment 8—the expenditure has met the scheme’s underlying objectives, particularly the criteria listed in subsection (2)(c) addressing deprivation, inequality, the capacity of social enterprise and charity, and the principle of additionality. I am particularly interested in these policy criteria because the wording of the consultation introduced by Amendment 3—which we broadly support—nevertheless leaves an open question about what the conclusion of that consultation will be. It could change the direction of policy. One could say that it is acceptable that a public consultation is used to change the direction of policy, but is that what the previous consultation paved the way toward, when it consulted about whether further dormant assets should be incorporated into the scheme, as had been successfully done for bank deposits? It seems that public consent, in essence, was given to the first Act on the basis of additionality and the worthiness of the public goods undertaken with the money. If there was a substantive change from that, the public might be surprised, even if it was the result of a consultation held with many more responses coming from well-funded private enterprises and the “usual suspects”, in the terminology that we have adopted.