Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) (No. 2) Regulations 2023
(6 months, 1 week ago)
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The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Steve Baker)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) (No. 2) Regulations 2023 (S.I., 2023, No. 1061).
I am very grateful to see you in the Chair, Mrs Latham. As everyone here knows, the Government are committed to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and to seeing the return of locally elected, accountable government in Northern Ireland. However, in the continued absence of a devolved Government, Ministers are determined to act in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland to ensure that public appointments are made and public confidence is maintained until the Executive is restored. That is why we brought forward primary legislation in December last year, which among other things allowed us to make urgent public appointments. We did that for two bodies initially, and then in July we brought forward a further measure to add 12 offices to the list.
Today, unfortunately, the Executive have still not returned. Therefore, following a request from the Executive Office and a further request from the Department of Justice in relation to senior Police Service of Northern Ireland appointments, a second statutory instrument was brought forward, which includes a further list of specified offices that have been identified by the Executive Office as urgent and critical.
This instrument adds to the list in section 6 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2022, enabling the Secretary of State to exercise Northern Ireland Ministers’ appointment functions in relation to these offices and will allow for appointments to be made to the relevant bodies, continuing to safeguard the quality and delivery of public services in Northern Ireland. These are important offices, and the exercise of appointment functions in the coming months is critical for the continuation of good governance in Northern Ireland.
Before I sit down, may I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak, who finishes his duties as the Department’s Whip today? He has done a superb job for us with great diligence and skill. It is a testament to his abilities that I have not rebelled once since he became my Whip. I note that I am surrounded today by my hon. Friends the Members for High Peak, for Workington and for Newcastle-under-Lyme, who all join us from the Whips Office—I cannot think what they are worried about.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Latham. I join the Minister in looking forward to the time when the Assembly is back up and running and we do not need to meet to agree these measures. I am grateful for his explanation of the regulations. As he will know, the Opposition support them as a way of ensuring the continuation of sound governance across Northern Ireland in the absence of a sitting Executive, which is what the people of Northern Ireland need. For that reason, we will not oppose them.
I note the urgency of these regulations under section 6 of the 2022 Act, given the current vacancies in the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the fact that the appointments in the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland and the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment will expire shortly, meaning that their boards will no longer be quorate. I hope that the appointments to the Housing Executive, Commissioner for Older People for Northern Ireland, Sports Council for Northern Ireland and Police Service of Northern Ireland will provide increased social and economic confidence to local people across Northern Ireland.
Given that the instrument covers the Police Service of Northern Ireland, I want to congratulate Jon Boutcher on his recent appointment as Chief Constable and I wish him the best. I thank the Minister for his co-operation and look forward to future visits to Northern Ireland, when I will talk about the effects of these instruments on the ground. I hope that, sooner rather than later, a time will come when these regulations are no longer necessary and we see a functioning Stormont.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
I am conscious that we have been in this room for less than five minutes, which means there is obviously consent on this statutory instrument. However, I want to ask the Minister, who I know will be all over this issue like a rash, about some of its practical implications.
The first is in relation to the appointments that it was clearly asked should be added to the list. Is the Minister able—either now or in writing—to give details of whether those appointments could be made swiftly because somebody has already been approved to take up a vacated position? If not, is there a timeframe, either in this legislation or in Northern Ireland, within which we are trying to fill all these positions, considering the importance of getting them up and running as quickly as possible? If the Minister is able to give me any information on that, I would be extremely grateful.
Mr Baker
I join the hon. Member for Putney in congratulating Jon Boutcher. Of course, the need to make his appointment was one reason why we laid this instrument as early as we did, and I am grateful to her for understanding that. That very much speaks to the point that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury made about progress. In relation to the Chief Constable, we have now made that appointment.
I have a complete list of appointments here, but I suspect it would take me about 10 to 15 minutes to go through each of them. There is a range: on the one hand, we have already made an appointment, with Jon Boutcher; with other appointments, the process is in progress. Of course, this is all subject to the normal process for appointments: we have taken the power of Northern Ireland Ministers to make these appointments; we have not diverted at all from the normal process otherwise. For some of these appointments, the process will be taking place; for others, it is still to take place. With the Committee’s assent, I will write to my hon. and learned Friend, rather than taking 10 to 15 minutes now, as there seems to be general assent. I will gladly set everything out for him.
To finish, having only been here for five minutes, it is probably not going too far to say that, before I was appointed to the Government, I gave a keynote speech for the Hansard Society, launching its review of delegated legislation. It is a common problem that legislation comes forward to such Committees and is dealt with swiftly, precisely because it is uncontroversial and enjoys broad assent, as this instrument does. My hon. and learned Friend is right to observe that, in a sense, this is not the way to handle a straightforward matter. I would commend to everybody—including the hon. Member for Putney, if she is interested—that Hansard Society review of delegated legislation. It is important that all Governments are able to deal with delegated legislation effectively and efficiently and without too much scrutiny when it is not necessary or, on the other hand, too little when more might be of benefit.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
On the contrary, as the Minister will recall, the late and sainted Eric Forth would always point out to us that it is the uncontroversial legislation that goes through uncontested that leads to the greatest lapses in our legislative duty.
Mr Baker
I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend. He and I have a long history together on such matters, perhaps in more controversial circumstances. The Committee will hopefully agree with me that the business before us—adding to the list of appointments we can make in the absence of Northern Ireland Executive Ministers—is uncontroversial and is necessary for the continued functioning of government in Northern Ireland. I hope the Committee will join me in approving these regulations.
Question put and agreed to.
Alcohol Licensing (Coronavirus) (Regulatory Easements) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
(6 months, 1 week ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Laura Farris)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Alcohol Licensing (Coronavirus) (Regulatory Easements) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 (S.I., 2023, No. 990).
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Ms Elliott. This is a relatively modest instrument, which was laid before the House on 11 September 2023. As all hon. Members will appreciate, the hospitality sector continues to face significant economic headwinds in the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic. In recognition of that, the regulations will ensure that the Government continue to support such businesses by extending the temporary provisions set out in the Business and Planning Act 2020 for a further 18 months.
I will begin by providing hon. Members will a bit of background. The Licensing Act 2003 enables licences to be granted to sell alcohol for consumption on site or off site, or both. In the event that a business obtains an on-sales-only licence and subsequently wishes to also do off-sales, the business is required to make an additional application to the licensing authority for a variation that would add off-sales to its licence.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
I am very supportive of the regulations and wish they were being made permanent, instead of us having to come back here in 18 months. Does the Minister agree that one of the big problems with people going back and seeking waivers in their licence is that many licensing authorities incorrectly treat it as a bartering game? They will say, “If you want to be able to do off-sales, what else are you going to give us? Will you shut a bit early or have extra restrictions?” That kind of bartering game is not good for business, and I hope she will make it clear from the Front Bench that it is unacceptable when local authorities do that.
Laura Farris
I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that. I was not aware of it.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
I am happy to write to the Minister with some examples.
Laura Farris
I would be grateful if he did so. I can certainly discuss it with my ministerial colleagues, because it sounds like something that might warrant a response.
In response to the covid pandemic, the Business and Planning Act 2020 included a temporary provision that automatically entitled holders of licences that covered on-sales to make off-sales without any need to amend their licences, saving them time and money at a desperate moment. That provision meant that pubs and restaurants could make alcohol on-sales, and that pavement licences were provided for any outdoor facilities they had. This was facilitated by a parallel but independent easement to pavement licensing, which created a temporary streamlined process. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 made the change to pavement licensing permanent.
It is believed that the off-sales provision has benefited at least 30,000 licensed premises in England and Wales that previously did not have an off-sales licence. The provision was due to expire at the end of September 2023, but given the clear benefits that it brings to businesses, it has been extended until 31 March 2025. This ensures that businesses will be able to continue to benefit from the provisions for a further 18 months.
Let me make it clear that although the immediate covid-19 crisis has passed, the residual effects continue to have significant impacts, particularly in the hospitality sector, which was acutely affected, and many businesses continue to manage high levels of debt. It is believed that the regulations are an appropriate mitigation to help businesses with the residual effects of covid-19.
During the next 18 months, the Government will explore the creation of a unified pavement licence that includes the consumption and sale of alcohol in outside pavement areas. We want to reduce the administrative burden faced by cafés, pubs and restaurants, which currently have to apply for multiple consents from their council, and I reassure hon. Members that that work is already under way.
I would like to pre-empt a concern that may be raised by making it clear that the Government have consulted the National Police Chiefs’ Council about the impact of extending the temporary off-sales permission. The view of the police is that the extension of off-sales licences has not caused any clearly identifiable increase in crime and disorder. As Members may know, another regulatory easement set out in the BPA temporarily increased the annual number of temporary event notices that licensed premises could have from 15 to 20 and increased the maximum number of days on which temporary events could be held from 21 to 26 days a year. For the avoidance of doubt, that easement will not be extended. It was underutilised, and it is not necessary to extend this provision, so it will lapse on 31 December.
I am confident that the measures in this statutory instrument will continue to benefit a wide range of businesses, including pubs and restaurants, and for that reason, I hope that it will receive the Committee’s support. I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. I welcome the Minister to her position. I know that she will bring her characteristic thoughtfulness to her work. The Home Department and the shadow Home Office team have been known to occasionally disagree, but I am sure we can disagree well when we do so.
The Opposition do not intend to stand in the way of this instrument, so I will keep my remarks brief. We support it, and we support efforts to assist the hospitality sector through the aftermath of the pandemic, the effects of which, as the Minister said, are still being felt. The hospitality industry in particular is hampered by the cost of living crisis at the moment, as disposable incomes are pared back, so the more support we can give, the better.
This is a reasonable accommodation to be made for business, and it strikes an appropriate balance between business and the community, but I hope this is the last time we extend these provisions in this way. It was heartening to see in the explanatory notes that there is a proper new unified licensing regime coming. That needs to be drafted, consulted on and put before Parliament, so that we can do our best by our constituents and perhaps iron out the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown raised and those that came out of the consultation.
I hope the Minister will expand on the commitment she has made. As I say, it is heartening to hear that this work is under way. The extension in this instrument lasts until March 2025, which takes us past the latest possible date for a general election. I would welcome some clarity as to whether we can expect the new regime in this parliamentary Session, before a general election, so that we do not have to do this again in March 2025 on an emergency basis, because we do not yet have a new regime to discuss.
There are concerns about the provisions in this legislation that need to be addressed by a unified regime. As the noble Lord Coaker said when the instrument was debated in the other place, the explanatory memorandum shows that the consultation responses were not, it is safe to say, supportive of this measure. There were 174 responses, which is not a huge number, but two thirds of those who replied wanted to return to the pre-covid provisions of the Licensing Act 2003. Slightly less—63%—opposed making the provision relating to temporary event notices permanent, but as the Minister says, that will be discontinued, which is welcome. Given that it has not been used, it is right to turn that provision off.
The Government spokesperson in the other place said that the reason for the Government going against the consultation was that, broadly speaking, the support was from the industry, with the opposition mainly centred on local residents and licensing concerns, and that, having viewed the consultation results, the Government opted to give more weight to the industry and continue the easements. I hope the Minister will expand on that. We are sent here to make such judgments based on evidence and to weigh up a variety of factors, and it is reasonable to sometimes act against a consultation, especially when I suspect that many of these concerns could be better addressed through local action under the current regime, or certainly under a broader, unified regime. However, it would be helpful if the Minister confirmed that that was the nature of those disagreements.
Notwithstanding what the Minister said about the National Police Chiefs’ Council, it would be helpful to know which representative bodies opposed and which supported this measure. I would be particularly interested to hear what the police and those who speak for local government said.
Another element of the consultation outcome related to crime and antisocial behaviour as a result of these easements. Happily, a majority—two thirds—of respondents said that they had not seen a change in crime and antisocial behaviour, but a significant minority of one third had. Again, I would be keen to hear from the Minister what assessment the Home Department has made of this, whether the impact of antisocial behaviour came up in those conversations with the National Police Chief’s Council, and what mitigations might be needed. We know that police forces and police officers are doing an amazing job all day, every day, and we would not want to make that harder, because we know that they are thinly stretched.
I have given the Minister a lot to address, and I hope she is able to do so. We will not oppose these measures, but it is time to move from this sticking plaster approach to a proper scheme that the public can buy into.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
I wholeheartedly support the Minister and the Government’s initiatives to make sure that we balance supporting the hospitality sector through these difficult times against addressing concerns about antisocial behaviour and public order.
I also remind the Minister, when she has discussions about this back in the Department, that anything proposed to go on the pavement can have a detrimental impact on those with sight loss, visual impairment, and other types of disability that make accessing and getting around areas such as town centres difficult. I know that this is a cross-departmental issue, so will she please ensure that officials, civil servants and other Ministers also understand that these decisions can have an impact on wider society that might not always be beneficial? We want to make sure we can balance that for everybody in society.
Laura Farris
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his warm words. He raised three interesting points. First, he referred to the responses to the consultation. The breakdown shows that two thirds of respondents were opposed to making the arrangements permanent, while 35%, a third, were in favour. That breakdown was divided roughly between the licenced premises themselves, and residents, residents’ associations, and so on. I tend to concur with him that this seems to be a matter which could be resolved best by individual police forces, perhaps in conjunction with the National Police Chief’s Council.
On the long-term plan, I have already said that it is the Government’s intention that this will be made permanent in some form or another. The Home Office is already working on a permanent solution, in conjunction with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Although the regulations concern a separate issue, it is anticipated that the long-term solution will be worked through in the coming months and will carry over between Parliaments, irrespective of when a general election comes.
The shadow Minister was quite right to raise the issue of antisocial behaviour. Again, there is a tension here, because although we are united in wanting to help the hospitality sector, we must be cognisant of the potential increase in antisocial behaviour. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby for quite properly raising the impact of things like this on disabled members of the public, who, frankly, often end up the victims of unexpected obstacles, because people do not give proper, adequate thought to them. She has given me food for thought, which I will take back to the Home Office.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
On antisocial behaviour, sometimes the problem is that the police do not have the resources to manage legitimate crowds and groups of people leaving bars and venues, and therefore they object to licences being granted or extended. Clearly, that is unfair on the business owners, who might not be producing any more noise or disturbance for local residents, but the police fear, because of a decade of underfunding, that they are unable to pound the streets at night. Could advice be provided to police forces and local authorities to ensure we get the balance right? In our local authority, the police objected to a licence for Soho House because they said they were worried that the punters leaving at 2 o’clock in the morning might be an antisocial behaviour risk. I know Soho House members are creatives, but they are not usually known for their antisocial behaviour.
Laura Farris
I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I disagree with him slightly, as we have increased police numbers by 20,000 since I was elected in 2019, and I do not think the common complaint of local police forces at the moment is that they are underfunded, but he alights on an important point with his example of Soho House. In whatever local authority or policing area, there will be distinct considerations. It is probably true that if the police are not embedded in any extension of licencing arrangements, there is a risk of antisocial behaviour, so the long-term solution must plainly be directed at that.
Overall, the reality is that the hospitality sector emerged from the pandemic with £10 billion-worth of covid-related debt, and every MP has heard directly about the pressure that has put on it. Sometimes, in the worst cases, it has led to closures, so I am very pleased that the Committee seems to be united in wanting to do everything it can to support this sector while we work to put a long-term solution in place. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Dormant Assets (Distribution of Money) (England) Order 2023
(6 months, 1 week ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stuart Andrew)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Dormant Assets (Distribution of Money) (England) Order 2023.
It is a pleasure to open the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma.
The dormant assets scheme is a world-leading example of how powerful and impactful partnerships between the public, private and civil society sectors can be. Money that was previously lying unused and forgotten is unlocked by the scheme for good causes, while consumers are protected and always able to claim back what they are owed.
Led by the financial services industry and backed by Government, the dormant assets scheme is underpinned by the voluntary participation of financial services firms. I put on the record my thanks to those responsible businesses, and in particular I express a warm welcome to Aviva and Legal & General as the first participants from the insurance and pensions sector. They are blazing a trail for others to follow, and I encourage all eligible firms to consider following in their footsteps.
In a little more than a decade, the dormant assets scheme has unlocked almost £1 billion to be spent across the United Kingdom. In England, that has helped scale up the social investment market tenfold: 5,000 organisations such as charities and social enterprises have the investment that they need to keep serving the communities and people who need it most.
Dormant assets have also enabled 22,000 young people from deprived and disadvantaged communities to find meaningful work. The scheme has supported the building of the world’s first youth employment toolkit, making clear the measures and interventions that really work to get young people into good jobs. It has supported financially excluded people with access to affordable credit. That has helped thousands of people when they really need it—people such as single mothers who needed to cover up-front nursery fees so that they could start a new job, or families living in appliance poverty who needed to afford a washing machine and basic furniture. Only last year, in my constituency, dormant assets funding provided 91 responsible and affordable loans worth more than £46,000 to financially vulnerable people.
Soon, the dormant assets scheme in England will be about putting decision-making power into the hands of communities to spend funding on what matters to them, in a way that works best for their area, through community wealth funds. Last year, thanks to the passage of the Dormant Assets Act 2022, the Government were able to give people and the scheme participants a say in how the English portion of the funding should be used. With more than 3,300 responses to the consultation, it is clear that the scheme enjoys significant public support.
The draft order makes good on the Government’s commitment that the scheme should support the four causes that people told us mean the most to them: youth, financial inclusion and education, social investment wholesalers, and community wealth funds. With those four causes, we can continue to make meaningful, long-term change across the country and provide support to those who need it most. I therefore commend the order to the Committee.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. This is my first time shadowing the Minister on behalf of the official Opposition, and I am glad that it gives me the opportunity to welcome the draft order, which enables community wealth funds to be added to the good causes named as beneficiaries of the dormant assets scheme in England.
As hon. Members know, the previous Labour Government introduced the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act 2008 and created the dormant assets scheme, a success of which we can be proud. The scheme enables funds from dormant bank and building society accounts to be made available to good causes, with English expenditure ringfenced, as the Minister said, to support initiatives focused on youth, financial inclusion and education, and social investment wholesalers. Since the 2008 Act came into force, more than £771 million has been allocated to those three causes in England.
It is important to recognise the four organisations that have distributed these funds and contributed to the scheme’s success: the Youth Futures Foundation, Fair4All Finance, Big Society Capital and Access, the Foundation for Social Investment. Between them, they have funded vital services, supporting young people and helping to break the barriers they face in accessing opportunities. They have offered practical help and support to people facing debt and financial exclusion—people who might otherwise have been forced to resort to loan sharks, other exploitative arrangements, or indeed gone without essential household items, such as the washing machines and similar items that the Minister referred to. Their work has included providing thousands of interest-free loans and, as has been said, they have supported the expansion of the social investment market tenfold to support a multitude of charities and social enterprises working in and with communities across the country, and so they are making a difference to the lives of people most in need. We want these organisations to be able to continue to carry out their important work at a time when we know the cost of living crisis is creating huge challenges both for our constituents and, indeed, for charities themselves. These sources of help and support are needed more than ever.
Last year, following on from the work of the independent Dormant Assets Commission, the Dormant Assets Act 2022 was passed with cross-party support, extending the scope of the original scheme to unlock additional assets and so provide further funding for good causes. Although the Government did not at that stage agree to add community wealth funds to the list of good causes that could be funded, it is really welcome that they listened to the strong arguments made for their inclusion and subsequently held a consultation. I am really pleased that, as the Minister said, the consultation received more than 3,300 responses and was supported by 71% of respondents. It is clear that there is very strong support for the use of dormant assets to support these funds targeted at communities that have low levels of civil society infrastructure and are in high need.
However, while we welcome the expansion of dormant assets and today’s order that enables these new funds to be distributed to a wider range of good causes, there are still a number of questions that I would like to raise with the Minister. We are, of course, conscious that dormant assets are not Government money; they can be reclaimed and it is therefore right and necessary that reserves are held to meet such reclaims. There remains a question about whether the level of funds held in reserve is the right one. What assurances can the Minister provide that the proportion of funds being held back is correct? How is this arrived at? How and when will it be subject to review?
I would also like to ask the Minister to clarify what work the Government are doing to broaden the scope of assets included in the scheme even further. The independent commission had recommended including unclaimed pension pots, but the Government have not done so. Please will he explain that decision? Are there other categories of assets that could be considered in the future? I have heard the suggestion that unclaimed balances on Oyster cards could be a potential source, and no doubt there are others. Could the Minister perhaps say a little on that?
The second set of questions I want to raise relate to the Government’s technical consultation on the design of community wealth funds and how it was undertaken. The first issue I would like to ask the Minister to address is the targeting of the funding. As he will know, the original conception of the community wealth funds was to provide long-term support and funding to invest in social infrastructure, focused on improving outcomes in left-behind neighbourhoods. That drew on the work done by Local Trust and others. That work used a community needs index to identify those areas with a lack of social or community infrastructure, and cross-referenced them with those areas facing high levels of deprivation, which were identified via the index of multiple deprivation.
That research identified 225 wards that were concentrated in housing estates most often on the periphery of towns and cities. However, in the technical consultation, the Government made clear their intention to use the community wealth fund to target communities in small towns of 20,000 residents or fewer. Local Trust has estimated that only 17 of the 225 left-behind neighbourhoods are in such small towns. Does the Minister accept that this risks the funds failing to meet the very places that most need this investment and that most stand to benefit from it? Is there not a danger that this change in focus will fail to provide accurate evidence on the effectiveness of the community wealth fund model, and that it may not provide the best value for money, and thus potentially undermine a second round of funding, or other further rounds?
Community wealth funds have the potential to boost and empower left-behind communities by giving them the resources to invest in the facilities and services that would have the most benefit locally and improve the lives of people who live there. The decision to target only small towns could mean that those left behind will stay there. The Minister knows that there is a perception that Government funding is too often allocated according to political considerations rather than on the basis of those places in greatest need. Does he understand the concern that this change in targeting has prompted? Can he tell me how the Government plan to target the left-behind neighbourhoods when many of them will not qualify for community wealth funds?
Finally, the Government had originally promised that there would be a three-month consultation period on the technical consultation. Given the significant changes between the version of the community wealth fund as originally conceived and the version in the technical consultation, surely providing adequate time for responses was particularly important, yet the Government allowed only four weeks. Can the Minister explain why the consultation period was cut short, and does he not share the concern that this may have impacted on the quantity and the quality of responses?
This order brings in welcome changes, but I hope the Minister agrees that it is important to maintain confidence and cross-party support for the dormant assets scheme.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
I promise not to detain the Committee too long, but I want to make a couple of points. I would first like to thank the Minister for all the work he has done. He has engaged very thoroughly with Members—I am vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for “left behind” neighbourhoods, and he has engaged very much with members of the APPG on development of a community wealth fund.
I also thank the Local Trust and the Community Wealth Fund Alliance for the work they have done to develop proposals around a community wealth fund, which is extremely important for communities identified as left behind. A number of those are in my constituency and others up and down the country. I also want to mention the point on targeting mentioned by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Nottingham South. While we obviously need to focus on smaller towns, it is important that we do not exclude the most deprived 10% of communities in the entire country. We need to make sure that they are included as well and that the definition is not too narrow. I hope the Minister will reflect on that and will ensure that, in developing the proposal and the scheme for the community wealth fund, communities like Blurton, Meir and Newstead in my constituency will continue to be eligible for the community wealth fund.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that even in affluent communities there are pockets of deprivation that need support across this country? Some of the worst affected places that are lacking in means are in those affluent communities.
Jack Brereton
My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. The original definition set out a population size of around 10,000 in order to identify those wards with the highest levels of deprivation. The deprivation in some wards in the most affluent parts of the country is such that they need this funding and that support. It is really important to focus more on areas with the highest deprivation.
Yes, we need to support smaller towns, including Longton and Fenton in my constituency, but we also need to make sure that the smaller, most deprived communities—the top 10% identified as the most left-behind wards in the entire country—do not miss out on this funding. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that, and I am sure he will agree that it is important that we focus this funding into those areas where it is going to have the greatest impact and where it is needed most.
Stuart Andrew
It is a pleasure to conclude this debate. I am grateful for the contributions we have had. It was remiss of me right at the beginning not to welcome the hon. Member for Nottingham South to her position. I notice that she said she was glad to offer her support, and I look forward to that being the continual theme in everything that we do from here on in. I also pay tribute to those four organisations that she mentioned. They have worked incredibly hard to distribute the funding so far, and I want to put on record my thanks to them.
The hon. Lady raised a number of points. First, we have been looking at the ratio at which the reserving is monitored. The organisation is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and is therefore required to hold sufficient funds to support base reclaims, additional funds for stress events, and funds to operate the business over the lifetime of the balances. The Reclaim Fund Ltd board remains comfortable that the 40% rate is appropriate, given its legal obligations to customers. Obviously, we will ensure we are constantly reviewing that. On that reviewing of the reserving ratio, it is continually looking at the Financial Conduct Authority guidance to ensure it is meeting its obligations.
On the scheme expansion, the hon. Lady is absolutely right to mention the opportunities that exist. Many of the dormant assets that are now transferring to the scheme will include things such as insurance and pensions, investment and wealth management, and security sectors. Section 19 of the Dormant Assets Act 2022 provides a way to bring additional assets classes into scope at a later date. Further work, however, needs to be done to identify these assets and to facilitate their inclusion. I share the hon. Lady’s ambition that we expand this fund as much as we can, so that we can maximise the opportunities.
I hear the points that have been made, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South for his questions, too, and particularly for his thanks to the Local Trust and the Community Wealth Fund Alliance, which have been very good at articulating the opportunities. We want this to be targeted, and we want it to be working to support those deprived small towns of fewer than 20,000 residents experiencing a high level of deprivation or low social capital. But that is part of the consultation. Today, we are purely adding in a fourth cause, but I absolutely recognise the need to look through the results of that consultation. We really want to reach communities that need investment in social infrastructure, and many points have been made about the need to ensure that they are able to stand on their own two feet. That is equally important. I cannot pre-empt that at this stage, but I can assure my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Nottingham South that I have heard their points.
Question put and agreed to.