Dormant Assets Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-11-16
Topic: Social Welfare
John Bassam (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his first outing on the Bill. Before I get into the body of the amendment, I perhaps ought to declare an interest. I am a member of several boards of charities, and I work for a charity, so I am rather hoping that if we endorse this amendment, those charities might at some point benefit from it. Nevertheless, it is an interest to be declared I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, for leading this debate in Committee, when he proposed what could be called a "full-fat" version of the community wealth fund initiative. In Committee, the Government argued that the local trust proposals, while interesting, are not sufficiently worked through, meaning that the DCMS is not in a position to make community wealth funds a beneficiary of dormant asset funds at this time Amendment 1 suggests a reasonable compromise and, on that basis, we hope that the Minister will be able to accept the amendment. The text would give the Government the power to establish a long-term pilot scheme, enabling small-scale investments to be made in local communities that have been left behind in recent years and for data relating to the social impact of those investments to be gathered and analysed. The amendment does not compel Her Majesty’s Government to act but gives them the tools needed to commission such a pilot The Government’s stated commitment to the levelling- up agenda was very much at the centre of their 2019 election campaign and, of course, they have subsequently argued strongly in favour of levelling up in many different guises and fora—we await anxiously, with bated breath and much anticipation, the arrival of the White Paper—so it is hard to see any reason why DCMS should exclude itself from that policy process and not agree to trial the community wealth fund approach My argument is simply that the proposal could act as a powerful tool in boosting deprived areas, putting small sums of money in communities’ hands so that they can invest in the facilities or services that would have the most local benefit—perhaps subsidising a community hall, running adult learning classes, supporting skills and training hubs and sports facilities, and improving digital connectivity. I am sure we could all come up with a long list of things that could directly benefit communities that have been left behind and require levelling up The other feature of this, which speaks to the amendment, is that much of the Government’s funding so far announced for levelling-up programmes is focused from the centre, so it is directed and targeted at precise places and communities. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that, but the community wealth fund, if trialled and piloted in the right way, would put money directly into the hands of communities that sought to benefit from them, giving a sort of bottom-up approach, one that I believe most of us in your Lordships’ House would very much support Stakeholders have repeatedly signalled a willingness to discuss their idea with Ministers. They are realistic about the difficulties of adopting community wealth funds with a big bang approach, which in my view adds rather more weight to the proposal for a time-limited series of low-risk pilots Finally, while I am on this point, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, who has made a valedictory speech and is therefore unable to contribute to this debate. We are grateful for her support for this amendment, as well as that of the Bishops at large. We are also, of course, very grateful to the right reverend Prelate for her wider service in your Lordships’ House We see this amendment as part of a levelling-up agenda and a way of empowering communities, as well as an opportunity to trial new and innovative ways of funding communities. We believe that this has a low-risk attached to it but would nevertheless give a boost, and some inspiration and thinking, to local wealth creation. I beg to move.