Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in this most interesting debate. The issue of additionality, as noble Lords indicated, obtains across lottery funds as well. We had one of these debates in extenso with regard to the Big Lottery Fund at the time. I shall go through the basics of this issue. First, Big has to be separately accountable for this money. It is not government money, as the noble Lord rightly says, but it is not lottery money either. The money actually belongs to those people who can claim it back, and if they cannot claim it back, it is in a fund for defined purposes. It is therefore important that people are assured that the money is spent properly. I am at one with all the noble Lords who have argued the case for additionality. I can guarantee separateness with regard to the accounts and I can guarantee accountability by the openness of what Big does. I can also assert that Big is not an arm of government; it is a distributor of the lottery. I understand the criticisms of the way it undertakes its most enormous task—and it is fairly extensive—but the Government have never claimed, sought to assert or taken any action to suggest that Big is their agent in getting expenditure through. If someone comes along with an individual case in which they say, ““This is money we are due to receive from the Government, properly allocated, but we have this concept of how that money can be used to extend what the Government have sought with their expenditure, which is inadequate, and we think that in fact it will improve the delivery of what the Government sought””, that is a case of additionality. After all, individual local people have made that case, not the Government. That is not the Government sequestering any resources in order to supplement what they deliver, but local people making an application. That is a point that has been missing from all representations. Bids to this fund will be made by the communities arguing on their own behalf. They will have to make the case that it is additional because distribution cannot take place on the basis that this fund has anything to do with being an arm of government. It clearly is not, and the Government are emphatic, with regard to the Bill, that they would not countenance such an interpretation. There is the question of whether there may be some services that the Government provide that other people then make a submission for. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, referred to Lancashire County Council, which is indeed a statutory body. It carries out a great deal that the Government impose upon it. It also has areas of great discretion where it carries out its own priorities. It is absolutely clear that the Government do not provide universal support for carers—in fact, Members of the Opposition have been a little prone to pointing that out to us in recent times. If Lancashire identified something in its community as a proper use of lottery money and put its case to the Big Lottery Fund, which agreed that it was additional because there was no question of it being funded by the Government for the foreseeable future, the noble Lord, Lord Howard, would not have a case that this was somehow by definition an illustration of the Big Lottery Fund acting as an agent of government. I emphasise again that we are not talking about lottery funds here but a separate fund, separately accountable, which Big Lottery Fund has to operate entirely separate from its normal operations. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, is right: he has considerable expertise in this area and has sustained this argument over a number of Bills on a number of occasions. He is right in saying that it is forlorn to think that one can get a definition of additionality that will stand up in law and be the absolute sure rock on which Big distributed resources under this fund. The noble Lord’s amendment has flaws in it. We recognised the representations that came from the opposition parties several years ago, thick and fast, with regard to the lottery. Our own Members, too, in this place and another place, were very keen that if we could get the concept of additionality in a Bill, it would ease any problems and criticisms. We maintain that it is not possible to do that—and the noble Viscount identified the difficulties. However, we do subscribe to the idea that the fund must be separate and accountable. Within that framework the Government see Big responding to demands from communities. I emphasise again that the initiative is not going to come from government, which has no right to act by regarding Big, either in its lottery operation or even in extenso with regard to this fund, as an agent of government expenditure. It is not. That is why I was emphatic in our last sitting in identifying that the resources that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister identified to be devoted towards the youth service were in the Comprehensive Spending Review for each of the next three years. What will happen with regard to youth services is that local communities will see ways in which they do not have a hope of their project being funded by government and they are able to establish to the fund that they want resources for an additional amenity. I am sure that noble Lords—particularly noble Lords who have been in the other place—who have been involved with communities, were fertile in identifying where there were government gaps in their communities. They often start to raise significant money to fill those gaps—and increasingly, in recent years, they have looked for other resources to give them a hand. Here we are saying that when people come forward with a wish for youth services to be enhanced in their area, this fund can properly be applied to. However, if the application is merely a substitute for what the Government are about to fund, or should fund, the application will not be sustained—because that is not the criteria on which the body will work. There is an obvious difficulty in that the noble Lord, Lord Howard, who has extensive experience of the third sector, will not accept that governments cannot, on all occasions, necessarily follow the best sentiments expressed when legislation is going through Parliament. Governments are bound by the law, and here the law is quite clear on how the legislation is meant to work. If it is thought that it may be difficult for others to keep these resources accountable, I would point out that local communities cannot reach those judgments, but parliamentarians can because of accountability. And there are other actors on this stage, too. The banks and building societies are carrying out this work voluntarily, and for defined good purposes, and they are acting within the requirement that the objective should not be to supplant what the Government ought otherwise to be obliged to do themselves. Therefore, the anxieties expressed today are not justified. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, said about Big being suspect. It would be surprising if there were not criticism of an organisation that was so extensive and responsible for so many funds. But that does not gainsay the fact that, on the whole, lottery distribution in this country has met public expectations and requirements. It has never been contended that Big is merely an agency of government to plug the gaps. It does not act that way, and in any case it is responsive to proposals put forward. It will certainly be so with regard to this fund. I recognise the pressure that doubts on the opposition side generate, but I shall resist that. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Howard, will recognise that I am doing him a favour. If he does not recognise the force of this position, the great danger is that on Report we shall attempt a definition of ““additionality”” for the fourth or fifth time in legislation, and it will be as fruitless as on all previous occasions.