Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to his announcement of £150 million charity funding in the covid-19 press conference on 20 May 2020, how much of that funding is new money; and from which sources that money is derived.

£71 million of the £150 million of funding announced on 20 May 2020 is new money. Government has worked with the dormant assets organisations to repurpose £79 million of their allocations in response to the crisis. Combined, the £150 million will support urgent work in England to tackle youth unemployment; expand access to emergency loans for civil society organisations; and help improve the availability of fair, affordable credit to people in vulnerable circumstances.

This funding comes from the dormant assets scheme. The scheme enables banks and building societies to voluntarily transfer funds from dormant accounts. Dormant accounts are those that have not been touched for at least 15 years and where the bank or building society is unable to get in touch with the customer to reunite them with their money. Customers can reclaim their money at any time. Since its inception in 2011, over £745 million has been released to social or environmental causes through the scheme.