Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

In response to the point made by the noble Baroness, I recognise of course that the Secretary of State is the final arbiter. What I sought to emphasise was that the accountability of the operation and the scrutiny of what is going on will be reflected in the scrutiny of big accounts, because it is there that this fund will be subject to analysis. The Secretary of State, if necessary, acts as a result of this analysis—and as far as the Secretary of State is concerned the broad principle is of population distribution and, with regard to the devolved Administrations, the Barnett formula. I do not think that I can go much further on that. As for the points made by noble Lord, Lord Shutt, decisions may have to reflect the increasing success of the scheme in addressing itself to certain problem areas. It may be that an area was able to put up a very effective case and that the concept of a social investor in those terms particularly benefits that area and reaps the rewards. It may be that the judgment on whether any further application put forward is that it is too supplementary to that to justify merit. On the other hand, the case may still obtain and, despite the success of the previous time, people may be able to show that they can build on that effectively to the considerable advantage of their communities. The overall position is that the impact is measured on communities and its success is measured by the accounts and report for which Big will be responsible. The difficulty that I have in responding to noble Lords more precisely is that devolution gives a certain amount of freedom to Scotland, Wales and England to exercise discretion on expenditure in their areas. I cannot go much further than that.