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Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]

As I said, I will touch on one or two issues of that nature. The banks were extremely reluctant to give me any information about dormant bank accounts. Initially, the British Bankers Association was extremely reluctant to come out with anything. Not surprisingly, it was happy with the existing situation. I confess that I am not a banker, but if one puts oneself in a banker's shoes, which option would be the most appealing—giving money to good causes, or hanging on to it, particularly in a situation such as the one that applies at the moment? In the Government's response to the consultation by the Commission on Unclaimed Assets it was stated that the proposed legislation's legal release of financial institutions from financial liability to repay dormant account holders was an incentive for banks to comply with the voluntary scheme. May I ask the Minister exactly how that is an incentive, because banks frequently accept liability to repay money to their clients for a return? That is their business. I suggest instead that a bank never surrendered a penny it did not have to surrender, and that that may well outweigh any eagerness on their part to expunge long-held liabilities which they will almost certainly never be asked to pay back.