Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

We support the thinking behind this amendment. Whether it is as straightforward to introduce into legislation as the noble Lord says, we will wait to hear fro the Minister’s response. In our view, such an amendment has merit because there is widespread cynicism about the Government’s motives in respect of this money and widespread cynicism about the way in which the Government have appeared at times to use lottery money for their own purposes rather than as additional expenditure. At all stages so far, when the Minister has described the purposes of the expenditure to be incurred under this Bill, he has been at pains to spell out that it will be additional. Of course, if a social investment bank is established, almost by definition that is additional because it is not being undertaken at the moment and there is no suggestion that if the money does not come from this source, it will come from another source from government. However, on the other two heads of expenditure, the Government are already spending a great deal of money on youth policies and on financial inclusion. In theory, it would be possible for the Government to allocate money from this fund that they would otherwise have taken from general expenditure. It is sensible to introduce a safeguard, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising. At the very least, I hope that the Minister can give us a categorical assurance that any funds raised and spent via this route will be additional to planned or potential government spending.