The government has secured £200m of funding from financial institutions to invest in voluntary sector projects, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced.

At question time on 9 February 2011, Mr Cameron told MPs that ministers had reached a deal with the banks during the Project Merlin negotiations, and the funds will be distributed by the Big Society bank as a result.

He claimed that Labour "put money into the banks, we are taking money out of the banks and putting it in to the Big Society".

But Labour leader Ed Miliband argued that public spending cuts were threatening the government's flagship policy.

He said Mr Cameron was "cutting too far and too fast and society is becoming smaller and weaker, not bigger and stronger".

Mr Miliband noted that Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, who is stepping down after leading Britain's Community Service Volunteers (CSV) charity for more than 40 years, had warned that the government's policies were "destroying the volunteer army".