Dormant Assets Bill [Lords]

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 2008, Labour set out a new principle in the House: to put dormant assets from bank and building society accounts to work, first by trying to reunite owners with their accounts but then, when connections failed to materialise, by moving assets to address social and environmental good causes. Labour’s vision has since released nearly £8 million to infrastructure bodies which, in turn, have multiplied the investment and expanded the work of civil society. I continue to argue that the pounds spent by civil society organisations stretch much further than those spent elsewhere in the economy.

This is a success to celebrate, but the last two years have been tough. As the sector's campaign slogan in response to the pandemic says, charities have been “#NeverMoreNeeded”. Demand went up and funding down as shops were shut and fundraising dried up. That is why this legislation is really “never more needed”, but it also furthers Labour’s ambition to introduce other assets into the reclaim fund, now that the principle has been established and the scheme has proved successful.

The three-year review should have taken place a decade ago, and the legislation before us today should have already released millions of pounds. If it had, the sector might have survived the last two years more securely rather than ending up where it is today. Today we are urging the Government to press on while also ensuring that the Bill is in good shape.

Charities have been tested throughout the last decade as the state failed to give the sector the back-up that it needed. Charities and Labour have shared values and a shared sense of purpose. We want to do all we can to transform our society, and that is why we value charities so highly. Bursting with dedication and expertise, civil society really is the heartbeat of all our communities.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that the Government put more than £150 million into the charity sector last year, and does she think that that was welcome, not enough or too much?

[Rachael Maskell]

As I was going on to say, that money reached only 14,000 charities out of 169,000. As we see demand spiralling, we are seeing charities struggling. The Government could have been far more generous, as they have been to many other sectors during the pandemic.

Every organisation has had to reinvent itself, digging deeper into its reserves, borrowing where possible, and appealing to the ever-generous public for help. We saw charities and mutual aid groups spring up in every corner of every community. Where the state stopped, charities took their service ever more deeply into our communities. That is why this legislation really matters, and why Labour will support its passage through the Commons today. It arrives in a better state thanks to the extensive work undertaken in the other place, and I particularly thank Lord Bassam of Brighton for his skilful handling of it, to help it to reflect the priorities of civil society.

In looking at the detail of the Bill, we are pleased to see that the principles that Labour set out in 2008 remain, including that of reuniting assets with their owners through extensive tracing processes and ensuring that the owner will always be able to claim the value of their asset in full if they seek to do so. The principle of this being a voluntary scheme will remain, whereby participants can opt in, and I encourage everyone to do so. When dormant assets have been through thorough tracing processes, the asset then transfers to the reclaim fund, which is responsible for any reclaim that might occur, moving surplus into the hands of identified organisations. Labour is most grateful to Big Society Capital, Access, the Youth Futures Foundation and Fair4All Finance for the way in which they have multiplied the value of these assets and invested them wisely to help people in our communities. Likewise, we are grateful to organisations in the devolved countries.

Part 1 of the Bill expands the opportunity for the inclusion of other financial dormant assets. The consultations to get to this point have been thorough, and each new product carries its own racing mechanisms and timescales to reduce risk. We welcome the inclusion of all the named assets, but I want to press the Minister further on pension schemes. While there is some inclusion, I know that he is making the case that until the pensions dashboard has been thoroughly tested, he is reluctant to expand in this area. I appreciate that there has been significant delay in the introduction of the dashboard, which has caused the Government significant embarrassment. This delay is denying good causes the assets that they want to put to work.

Perhaps the Minister could set out a timeline for further widening the scheme to these kinds of products. It would be good to hear from him what other assets he is considering for later inclusion, whether they are direct cash or non-cash assets. Charities cannot wait to benefit, and nor can the public. The powerful testimonies from current beneficiaries demand that the Government seek to expand. I know that the Second Reading of the Bill in the other place raised many helpful suggestions as to how that could happen. Wherever funds can be identified, Labour wants to see them put to work for social and environmental good causes.

Part 2 of the Bill focuses on a number of themes, the first of which is the reclaim fund. Moving it under the auspices of the Treasury is a positive move, placing it independently but with lines into the Treasury. However, it is Labour’s consideration that, 13 years since the scheme’s passage through this place, it should be reviewed. Each reclaim product should be assessed separately according to the levels of real risk to the reclaim fund. If data from the first phase is observed, the scheme could be more generous in its support to beneficiaries. The sector agrees with that. A regular review would also help to identify any risk in the scheme. The Government will now be responsible for underwriting any deficit that might occur with a loan to the scheme, but it is far better to avoid such risk in the first place. My broader question is therefore: is the balance right?

Before I address the matter of where the money is spent, I also want to raise the question of the next stage of the Bill. After such detailed consultation over many years, we need to ensure that there is no further significant delay in preparing and instituting secondary legislation. Labour wants to see this process commence on the heels of this legislation, for it to be thorough and allow sufficient time for response and for it then to be expedited through secondary legislation.

I am most grateful for the addition of clause 29 to this legislation. It was added on Report in the other place and it highlights a deficiency in the distribution of the reclaim fund. That is impeding civil society from thriving across many communities and impeding the social levelling-up agenda. Imagine doing a jigsaw and finding one piece missing: it mars the whole picture. The reconstruction of civil society is the same. All the schemes need to be in place, but the exemption of the community wealth fund has meant that whole swathes of communities have been robbed of the opportunity to build the very partnerships that could tackle the deepest of challenges.

In my own constituency, we have a thriving and growing voluntary sector under the superb leadership of York CVS. However, we have areas of real deep entrenched deprivation. Tang Hall Big Local, a local trust, has now developed micro-level infrastructure to start tackling social injustice in the Tang Hall area. It is utterly amazing to see the multi-agency approach and the multiple offers, alongside community engagement—225 such areas have been mapped out.

Imagine areas where there is no thriving CVS or a well-developed civil society sector, on which the new integrated care systems in the Health and Care Bill depend. Imagine this loss in the most deprived and challenged areas, as they often are. The amazing things that charities do just would not happen; the vital partnerships and social infrastructure would not be built. This is at the core of what the community wealth fund does. It empowers communities to develop the partnerships needed to transform themselves. Its inclusion will mean greater equality, which is surely what levelling up is all about.

That is why the inclusion of the community wealth fund in the Bill to build social infrastructure is so vital. The principles of the Bill and the 2008 Act are too broad to provide such a framework without clause 29, and the principle needs to be framed in primary legislation. Without it the funds could go elsewhere and will not meet the ambition that I trust the Government share with Labour.

The Government do not need further pilots, as there are 150 projects at various stages of development. Those projects have been evaluated and will continue to prove their value. When it comes to the civil society sector, the Government always seem to have the knack of overcomplicating things and missing the opportunity it presents. If they really wanted to build back better, they would have poured investment into community wealth funds and seized this moment to bring about social transformation. That is why Labour has pushed so hard so see it included in the Bill, and the Lords supported it. I trust for the sake of its impact that the Government will not lose the opportunity to reaffirm the principle of a community wealth fund in primary legislation to complete that picture.

In closing, I put on the record my thanks to the thousands of organisations that have shown their support for taking the reclaim fund forward, and to the participants in the dormant assets scheme to date for their co-operation and engagement. Across our communities, staff and volunteers are building civil society, fighting inequality and injustice, and supporting people with every need. Their contribution is outstanding and their support is utterly amazing. It gives us all such pride to reflect on all they do. Putting money to good work for them to multiply its benefits has always been a principle that Labour has advanced, and we will again throughout the passage of this Bill.