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Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

Sorry, Amendment No. 27. I am excited about getting an answer to the last amendment, and I am still living in the past. This provision would not be onerous. The population of banks and building societies is finite, so the reclaim fund will know how many organisations could potentially transfer money to it. We have discussed whether or not the scheme should be voluntary. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, moved an amendment yesterday about whether it should be made compulsory. As the Minister knows, our instincts are to back a voluntary scheme, but a corollary of backing such a scheme is that there must be proper transparency. The public are entitled to see how well the scheme is working, which includes whether or not all institutions take part in it. That would allow questions to be asked of the banks and building societies that had not transferred any money to the scheme. This would not penalise those who transferred money under the alternative scheme in Clause 2 because they would have to have paid some money into the reclaim fund, so they would automatically be covered. The power of publicity could be harnessed to make the scheme work better by throwing the spotlight not only on to those who have passed money over but, with this amendment, on to those who have chosen not to take part in the scheme. I hope the Government will welcome that as support for the scheme. I beg to move.