Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

The Government are totally in sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, and I hope that I can establish that we are meeting his objectives. When the broad objectives are set out and we identify youth services, we do so in order to make that category of potential recipient clear and precise. After all, it is one of the three central objectives in the Bill. I reiterate that the Government have clearly set out three priorities for the use of dormant account money in England with a clear focus on services for young people, but is that to be interpreted as exclusive? I hope not, because I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shutt. I reassure the Committee that the wording in the same subsection which refers to expenditure on or connected to facilities and services for young people is intended to give some flexibility—the very flexibility that I think the noble Lord is seeking. In some cases, it would be absurd—and a community would think it absurd—if resources which had been won through a bid to the fund primarily to create youth services had, by necessity, to be exclusively for youth services when others could also benefit. Therefore, we have set out three clear priorities for the broad areas of expenditure but we want exactly the same flexibility identified by the noble Lord. We do not think that the amendment is necessary because there is flexibility in the Bill to take account of the exact points that he made. The problem is that the more specific we are in the Bill, the more prescriptive the directions and the more narrow and rigid the scheme becomes. Therefore, I entirely share the noble Lord’s objective, but we think that it is already covered in the Bill and that the amendment is not necessary.