Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]

If I may, I shall say more about that when I turn to the next amendment, because it is probably more convenient to do so then. However, I should point out that there are certain issues in respect of the Financial Services Authority and regulatory approval of the reclaim fund, and they will limit the speed with which we can do some of those things. Amendment No. 4 would require the BLF to publish one month before the financial year-end an estimate of the amount of money available for apportionment in the following year. I presume that the intention would be to make the funding flows between the reclaim fund and the BLF more transparent and, perhaps, to enable distribution in every respective country, and I appreciate the desire to do so. The Bill already makes the necessary provisions to document the funding flows between the reclaim fund and the BLF. The fund is required to publish the total amount that it has transferred to the BLF in any one year and the BLF's apportioning of that funding between the countries of the UK will be determined by the apportionment order issued by the Secretary of State under clause 16. I appreciate that amendment No. 4 has been tabled for the purposes of probing, but the problem with it is that providing estimates of the amounts available for distribution the following year is likely to be difficult—for a couple of reasons at least. First, the BLF relies on the reclaim fund to identify the sums that it does not need to retain to meet anticipated repayment claims and its own costs for the following year. Secondly, the amendment imposes a forecasting requirement on the BLF, but it would be up to the reclaim fund to decide when it is appropriate for those sums to be released for distribution. We anticipate that the BLF and the reclaim fund will plan the way ahead. Trying to specify that in legislation rather than allowing for a normal and constructive working relationship would be difficult, and we have no reason to believe that the reclaim fund and the BLF will not work constructively together. Amendment No. 15 would require the BLF to record in its annual accounts the amounts that it had distributed in each of the countries of the UK and the expenses that it had defrayed out of its dormant account income, in respect of the BLF's own expenses and those incurred by the Government in the administration of the scheme. Under clause 21, the Secretary of State already has the power to make financial directions to the BLF, including directions in relation to the form of accounts or methods and principles for the preparation of the accounts. We anticipate that the nature of the directions issued will follow the form of directions given to the BLF by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport under the lottery legislation. It makes sense for the accounting requirements to be similar. When we discussed those issues in Committee, there was a general feeling that there should be procedures similar to those now operated by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, although the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families will be offering the guidance. The regulatory framework will be essentially the same. Amendment No. 15 is therefore unnecessary and we oppose it. I apologise for how long I have taken to cover the amendments, but it is right to put on the record some points of clarification that emerged from discussion of the probing amendments.