Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]

We would always seek to act in as good time as we could in such matters. Amendment No. 5 seeks to clarify that English expenditure on youth can be revenue or capital. I understand its probing nature and would simply argue that it is unnecessary because clause 17 is wide enough to enable the BLF to direct resources to either revenue or capital spending without the need for the clarification or qualification proposed. Our ambition is for all young people to have access to high quality, attractive and safe places to go. These should offer a wide range of exciting positive activities to support young people to reach their full potential, but also to help improve relations between young people and the wider community. We therefore intend for unclaimed assets in England to be invested in new and improved youth facilities in every constituency, allowing ever more young people to participate and to benefit. Our vision is for unclaimed assets funding that is primarily intended to support investment in youth facilities, not to meet ongoing costs. We recognise, however, that some time-limited resource funding may help to ensure the viability of capital projects—for example, to support project management and delivery costs. I anticipate that, where appropriate, the spending directions may enable such resource spending, and we are clear that, as drafted, the legislation allows us to do so. I hope that that gives hon. Members a clear indication both of our thinking in that area, and of why we think that amendment No. 5 would be unnecessary. Amendment No. 6 would spell out that spending under the English youth provision be spent on either new or existing facilities, services or opportunities. Again, we agree with the thinking behind clause 17 but argue that the amendment would not be necessary, because the clause is already drafted widely enough. It is important to add that a demonstration of financial sustainability will be the key to the Big Lottery Fund releasing dormant accounts for youth projects, just as it currently scrutinises the viability of bids under its lottery and non-lottery programmes. So, we want the money to be genuinely additional, as I have tried to say. We had debates in Committee about the meaning of additionality, and we see it as being primarily capital-based, but allowing for some time-limited resource funding. We want to ensure that the projects that the Big Lottery Fund supports, using dormant accounts money, are sustainable because they take into account the long-term funding requirements on the revenue side, which could be met from other sources.