Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, one of the wonderful things about this House is that there is always a way to say what you want and stay within the rules. So I thank the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, not currently in his place, for welcoming, on behalf of the whole House, the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, on the occasion of her maiden speech. She joins quite a cabal of noble Lords all across this House who are very focused on the issue of music education; I hope that her addition will help them take that issue over the transom, as it were, and make sure that we get a secure basis for funding music education in the future—though, like some others, I think that it should be less a charity issue and more a fundamental issue of funding from central and local government.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, who was kind enough to provide a briefing to those of us with an interest. It was a thorough and very open briefing, and we on these Benches very much appreciated that opportunity. As she said in her opening comments on that briefing, this is a technical bill. Usually, when I hear those words, I am immediately suspicious—we have just dealt with a Financial Services Bill described as “technical” and it was anything but—but, in this case, I accept that that is an accurate description of the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, it has worthy objectives that none of us could possibly object to, and I have heard no fundamental objection in any of the speeches in this House.

We all understand that there are principles that were established in the original dormant assets Act, and we understand that the intention is that those will remain consistent in this new Bill. The most important of these is almost certainly that reclaim is an absolute priority—the rights of the gone-away are in no way trammelled—but there has to be positive action to try to relink people to their lost assets.

I take some objection to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Polak, though he is not the only person who said that if people cannot manage their money, let us at least do something useful with it. In the incredibly complex financial world that we deal with, and one that has changed in so many ways—just look at the whole pensions environment—it is not surprising to me that people have lost track of assets that should rightfully be theirs. There needs to be real pressure on the industry to make sure it does a much better job in reconnecting them. As the noble Lord, Lord Bates, said, were the shoe on the other foot, it would be hunting people down to pay their various obligations.

I found it interesting that, in the briefing we had from the AIB, the insurance lobby group, there was a plea for access to government data where that is possible without trammelling privacy regulations, and to make that an easier process. Now, with the addition of new assets, this is becoming more and more important, as well as, frankly, more and more of a challenge. It is also a principle that participation in the scheme by asset holders is entirely voluntary, and it seems to me that that is upheld.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, also talked in her briefing about the importance of the additionality principle. I will say a little more on this later, but I am somewhat in the camp of the noble Lords, Lord Hodgson and Lord Davies of Brixton, in asking: what is additionality? It is a rather fuzzy concept, and one of which I think we have to be aware and wary. My noble friend Lady Barker pointed out that during the Covid crisis—Covid became an excuse for many things—that principle was openly breached. I do not think that any of us in the House today want to see that become an underlying pattern. We all know through common sense what additionality is, and let us hope that, by the time the Bill leaves this House, we end up feeling that it is well embedded in this new legislation.

On the expansion of the scheme to new classes of assets, we heard a number of suggestions for additional new classes of assets that have not been dealt with in the Bill. Yet others were cautious about taking the scheme too far, particularly where there is no easy way in which to crystallise the value of the asset and where there is no established principle within the current industry on how gone-away owners will be dealt with and how the value of their assets, if they come to reclaim them, will be set. That will be important, and I hope that we can press the Minister on it a bit, because the Bill essentially gives power to the Minister to make those future decisions; it no longer brings them in front of Parliament. It will be critical that we understand what the principles are that would lead to expansion. I am not saying that it should be an anti-expansion measure; it is just important to understand before we sign off on the Bill exactly how that process will happen and what the underlying principles will be.

I should say on behalf of my party that my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, who was unable to speak today, will, in Committee, raise the issue of whether unclaimed winnings and dormant betting accounts would be appropriate assets to bring into the pool. The Dormant Assets Commission in 2017 promised that it would look again at that issue in three years’ time—and here we are, four years later. It would be worthwhile.

Almost nobody raised the issue of the Reclaim Fund Ltd entity. It is now, as we know, a non-departmental public body, and that is right; a public interest element should be embedded in whatever organisation handles the reclaim process. But we are also giving powers to the Government to replace that body with additional bodies. As far as I can see, there is little constraint on what the character of that new player might be. Forgive me for being an old cynic, but look, for example, at recent legislation on what happens in bankruptcy. I have watched financial institutions manoeuvring to put themselves into positions where they can maximise commissions and fees that offer a whole variety of opportunities. I am cynical enough to think that, if we do not have some sort of standards or criteria for a group behaving as a reclaim fund, we could certainly see entities coming forward that would find ways in which to exploit the opportunity of managing this.

We must understand better why the current retention rate is so high—the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, was eloquent on this issue and my noble friend Lady Bowles spoke to it—particularly as the Government stand behind a reclaim fund. A simple guarantee would serve, and that might release a great deal more money. It all becomes much more complex as we go into a more diverse set of assets, and we need much better understanding.

That leads me to the point originally made by my noble friend Lady Bowles and others in this House: the entity is rather opaque. We do not understand quite how it is functioning and making its various decisions. We do not understand the level of efficiency. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said that there should be value for money. Perhaps a private audit firm is the wrong way in which to look at this; we need something with a shape that is much more in the public interest. I very much hope that the Government will explore that.

I shall draw my comments to a close by considering the distribution of funds—an issue that has occupied most of the discussion in this House. I have no intention of repeating the wide range of proposals for ways in which the money should be distributed, but a lot was said about social capital, the need for money for long- term patients, local input and control, and music education. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, I think, talked about the BBC as a possible recipient. There was reference to the community wealth fund proposals that we have all received. There are many different ways in which this could go as the distribution of funds is expanded.

I want to pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman. He said that the existing distribution has sitting behind it confidence and consent. That principle must extend into any changes to the way in which the assets are distributed.

I also want to pick up the point made in detail by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and many others. The Minister described the consultation process promised in this Bill as a public consultation, whereas that is not what the Bill says. The Bill says that

“the Secretary of State must consult … the Big Lottery Fund, and”—

as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said—

“such other persons (if any) as the Secretary of State thinks appropriate.”

I do not think that will survive Committee stage, quite frankly. There is too much opportunity for this to become a game of favourites, and we cannot let that happen. That principle of confidence and consent seems absolutely fundamental to all of this.

I welcome this Bill. It has many useful purposes. I accept that it is a technical Bill. We will support it but, again, we will do so in principle. I can see areas that will be explored in Committee. I am delighted that those areas have been identified by speakers on several different Benches across this House, because the fundamental concept of the first dormant assets Bill was cross-party, and I believe that this Bill very much needs that characteristic too.