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Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is far too modest about this amendment, which is excellent. It has much the same purpose as Amendment No. 37 that I withdrew, but provides much more comprehensive protection to the account holder as well as being more neatly drafted. This amendment is much easier to comprehend for anyone studying the Act. It is particularly important that we should pursue this, because on closer reading government Amendment No. 42 does not provide the degree of protection that I had first imagined and I apologise for having eulogised so much an hour ago. I know that the noble Baroness says that this is a probing amendment, but I hope that at the next stage it will be a non-probing amendment to be pursued with the utmost vigour—unless, of course, the Minister sees fit to accept its obvious merits today and save us all a great deal of trouble.