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Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

This has been a full and extensive debate and a challenging one to respond to. I prefer the concept of ““novel”” with regard to the social investment institution rather than the concept of ““weird””. I shall start by trying to establish for the noble Lord that we have made some progress on this concept, which I hope is convincing progress. Of course, much work remains to be done and there are a great number of uncertainties. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, alluded to the most obvious one; namely, how much money is available. We have estimates that between £250 million and £350 million may emerge from the banks and the building societies.