Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 57, 58 and 59 put forward respectively in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Barker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, seek further commitment and clarity regarding Clause 29 and the statutory duty to consult. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, for setting out so clearly the importance of the consultation process: we concur absolutely with the spirit of her remarks and I hope that my remarks on the earlier group show quite how critical we see the consultation as being as part of the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked me to commit that a question about a community wealth fund will be in the consultation. We need a collective agreement on what goes into any consultation document, so I am unable to give her that reassurance today. Similarly, I hesitate to make any comment in relation to the specific community wealth fund initiative, however caveated in the way she suggests, because I do not want to give the impression that any decisions have been made before they have been. We are genuinely going into this consultation with the aim that I outlined on the earlier group; I hope she will accept that.

As noble Lords have noted, Clause 29 mirrors the approach for distributing funding that is already used in the devolved Administrations. In line with their process, the Secretary of State will consider who it is appropriate to consult and has committed to launching a full public consultation on the social and environmental causes in England, provided this measure passes. This will give the public and sector participants the opportunity to contribute their views before any change may be made to the current English causes. The devolved Administrations have similarly undertaken public consultations on the distribution of their portions before laying orders.

I will respond to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Merron. Making further specifications in this clause could imply that these stakeholders are more important than other groups which it might be equally appropriate to consult.

I turn to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on the length of the consultation. It will be open for a proportionate amount of time to allow for considered and good-quality responses, and will be in line with Cabinet Office guidance. She will be aware that, in response to the challenges faced by many groups, but including small community organisations, we have extended the time period of consultations where necessary, particularly, most recently, during the pandemic. For the reasons I have set out, I am not able to accept these amendments and I ask that noble Lords do not press them.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have had one request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for, as usual, responding very fairly, but I have a number of questions. She said, and I understand why, that she cannot commit to including the community wealth funds in the consultation document, but will she at the very least commit to considering it when discussing what will go into the consultation after the Bill becomes law?

The Minister did not respond to my fundamental question—it was raised also by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer—about the difference between what the Bill says about consultation and what she herself has said about it. I asked specifically whether she would take the matter away and have another look at it before Report. If the Government are committed to consulting community groups and so forth, why does the Bill not say so? It is sending out a very bad message if it stays like it is. I want to push her on that. Will she at least look at what has been said today and see whether the drafting of the Bill could not be improved? As has been pointed out, there has already been quite a large number of government amendments. This amendment would not change what the Government plan to do, but it would give a clear signal to the outside world that the consultation would, to use my noble friend’s word, be “meaningful”.

On the timescale, the Cabinet Office gives very little guidance now. Can the Minister at least confirm that she accepts that, given the kind of groups we want to hear from, “proportionate” points towards a longer rather than a shorter timescale for consultation?

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Similarly, as I mentioned earlier, the Youth Futures Foundation is focused on becoming the leading “what works” organisation on tackling youth employment. The foundation will have directed £40 million towards funding and evaluating the largest range of youth employment interventions ever initiated in England. When those findings are applied in practice, that should allow existing and new funding in this area to be spent more effectively. To recap, in response to the request of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that we accept this amendment, there are two reasons why we feel we really cannot. One is that the principle of additionality is clearly in the Bill and has been part of the existing Act. Secondly, the implementation since the original Bill became law, has clearly respected all the issues that noble Lords have raised today. For these reasons, I am not able to accept the amendment and I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw it.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I have no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the mover, the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

I am grateful to everybody who has spoken. Obviously, the Minister is trying to give me some reassurance, but it has not taken me all the way, I have to confess. Although the additionality principle is in the Bill, it is there only in the context of shaping the work of the Big Lottery Fund; it is not there in the shape of a fundamental principle that applies, necessarily, if the Big Lottery Fund were to become one of several bodies managing distribution, for example, or if there were to be a different route for distribution. It is not sitting at that fundamental level; it is sitting at least one arm’s length away. So, I continue to have that concern.

I fully accept that the Minister has given some very good examples of additionality, but if she would care to look again at the GOV.UK website, to which I drew her attention when we were discussing some of these issues earlier in the week, it is a stretch to imagine that the additionality principle is applying to the £150 million from dormant bank and building society accounts involved in providing support to charities as a consequence of the Covid epidemic. Indeed, the way the Government discuss it—running it in with their own £750 million of additional funding—makes it very clear that they see this as a single programme, and express themselves very naturally and honestly in that way. There is a real question: do we say, “In extremis, forget the additionality principle”, in which case that ought to be acknowledged up front? Or do we say, “It’s always been a fairly weak principle and rather blurred; we have some good examples, but it is not something we are really going to press”? A lot of understanding needs to come from that.

When we go through a new Act, of course, Covid is at the front of our minds now, but I very much hope that in a matter of time it will not be and we will be back to normal procedures. We really need to know how the Bill will operate when it becomes an Act, because it will continue into that future period. So, I raised the issue of additionality and I think we could use some better answers. I absolutely still do not understand why it is not written in such a way that it applies to the government department’s actions. That is just beyond me, because I have certainly seen the Government draft similar constraints for other government departments in other areas, and I have certainly seen them accept amendments that do the same kind of thing. It just strikes me as a bit peculiar to see the way it has been handled here. I think all of us are concerned that it should be a tight ship and not a leaky one. Saying all that, I will, of course, withdraw my amendment.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Barker.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

I thank all noble Lords who spoke in support of my amendment, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Merron. I thank the Minister for her considered reply. I hope she will understand that we have agreed from the outset of our discussions that there is an overall consensus about the benefit of the scheme and the Government’s intentions to take the existing scheme, grow it and make it work efficiently and effectively.

However, throughout our discussions the Minister will have picked up from all Benches a not inconsiderable degree of concern about the way the scheme is moving away from the initial primary legislation into secondary legislation, and the considerable powers of Ministers to change fairly fundamental aspects of it without further scrutiny. Although she was complimentary and supportive of voluntary organisations and social enterprises in her response, as I fully expected she would be, she still left the door open for for-profit companies to take over aspects of the scheme without any limitation. I worry about that. It is a real concern, particularly given the way parliamentary scrutiny is being watered down by the concept of the Bill.

I heard what the Minister said on this matter, but I am not reassured and I reserve my position for later stages, because there is something deficient about leaving the door open for the growth of non-charitable and non-social enterprise players in the distribution of this money. However, I heard what she said. We have come to the end of our discussions today and I thank her very much for the answer she gave. Therefore, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.