Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

My Lords, as the Minister said, this Bill came out of a statement made by the then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, in his Pre-Budget Report in 2005. He said that, "““unclaimed assets held in bank accounts will, once realised, be put to use to improve youth and community facilities throughout Britain””.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/12/2005; col. 613.]" That is the area of the Bill that I should like to concentrate on. While the Minister gave a very detailed explanation of the Bill, he did not say why it should be these particular areas? Why do the Government feel that they are in particular need of extra funding that is not already distributed by any of the lottery bodies, the Big Lottery Fund or any of the others? The Government have given no explanation of why they have taken these two areas, and it would be useful to know how the decision came to be made. As to the Bill, Clause 15 states that the money shall be distributed for, "““meeting expenditure that has a social or environmental purpose””." Having heard the Minister’s speech, I find it difficult to know how the environmental purpose fits into this. Clause 17 refers to distribution being made for, "““the provision of services, facilities or opportunities to meet the needs of young people””." That makes sense. But paragraph (c) refers to distribution being made, "““to a social investment wholesaler””." There is an intriguing explanation of this in subsection (2), which states that a, "““‘social investment wholesaler’ means a body that exists to assist or enable other bodies to give financial or other support to third sector organisations””." Sadly, not being a draftsman or as clever as the Minister, I have no idea what that means. In fact, there is no explanation in the Explanatory Notes. Can the Minister explain what on earth a ““social investment wholesaler”” is in this context? It is absolute gobbledegook to me. We all give the Government credit for the principles behind the Bill—the principle regarding dormant accounts is a good one—but the big question is how the money is to be distributed. We know it is going to go to the Big Lottery Fund, but why just to that fund? The Big Lottery Fund is an amalgamation of the New Opportunities Fund, the Community Fund and the Millennium Commission, and it has done quite well since it was set up by the Government, but why are the other distributing bodies not included? After all, the Big Lottery Fund gets 50 per cent of all lottery money and the other organisations, for sports, arts and heritage, receive only 16²/3 per cent. Those distributing bodies are under real pressure because under the recent Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund order that the Government laid before the House, the Secretary of State is going to transfer £1.085 billion from the National Lottery Distribution Fund to the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund between February 2009 and August 2012. This sum, as the order states, represents a previously agreed transfer of £410 million plus an additional £675 million. This will have a huge effect on both heritage and the arts. It begs the question: why are they not included on the list? Why is the money going only to the Big Lottery Fund? After all, their budgets are being squeezed. Their budgets are smaller than the Big Lottery Fund, which gets 50 per cent of all the money. I remind your Lordships that the Big Lottery Fund will probably distribute close to £700 million this year. If one follows the chain through, it raises the issue of whether the Government are, in effect, allowing this money to go to the Big Lottery, and then money that would go to the Big Lottery is given to the Olympic Games. It is a circular motion. It begs the question of whether the Olympic Games are being bailed out in this way. I hope that is not the case. I hope the Minister will be able to say that he will not be coming before the House with any additional orders for taking money from the lottery. On the previous lottery Bill we had arguments about prescription, specifying matters and additionality. I am delighted to see that in both Clause 21 and Schedule 3 those points are addressed and that we will not have to re-fight those arguments. I congratulate the Minister on succeeding, again, against the Treasury. But there is a concern because it has proven more difficult to ascertain whether the money given out by the Big Lottery Fund is additional. As we know, it has given money to provide hospital scanners and so on, some of which we believe should be part of normal expenditure. I welcome the Bill although it does raise some questions. I am sure the Minister will answer them when he winds up. We will have an interesting time in Committee probing him on some of the details and checking that the directions the Government can give to the Big Lottery Fund on the way the money is spent does not allow them to control the distribution of funds. I hope that that is not the case. I look forward to the Minister’s response.