Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, regrets that she is not able to be here today, because this was scheduled after she already had other commitments, so, with the leave of the Committee, I will channel the noble Baroness to wrap up. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this constructive debate and the Minister for his constructive response. Common themes are emerging throughout our discussions on the Bill, and the subject of transparency and accountability is probably the major one. I know that the noble Baroness will be disappointed by the response to shortening the reporting deadline to six months, which does not seem overly onerous. I was encouraged, I think, by what the Minister said about the reporting requirements and I look forward to receiving the letter he has spoken about. However, he did not refer in his answer to a couple of things that were in the amendment and are really important. First, it is important that GBE reports on the investments it has made, and I do not think he mentioned that. Secondly, as a number of noble Lords mentioned, the key issue is that of additionality—in other words, what impact GBE is having on crowding-in private investment alongside the public investment. As I said on Monday, anyone can spend money. If this is to be in any way positive, it needs to attract private investment that would not otherwise have happened. It is really important that that is measured in the same way as it has to be by the National Wealth Fund. I think it is true to say that the National Wealth Fund, because it has the obligation to report on additionality, is actually performing rather well on additionality.