Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

I apologise for not participating in the debate at Second Reading and for juggling this Bill and the Bill in the Chamber, but such is life. It may be more appropriate for me to speak to Amendment No. 24, but I wish to support Amendments Nos. 16, 24 and 44. These amendments have strong support from the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition, which is a coalition of 53 charities and umbrella organisations. I declare an interest as vice-president of Marie Curie Cancer Care, which provides care to cancer patients. In the briefing, which has been widely circulated, the coalition recognises that this is a highly technical Bill—certainly far too technical for me, as I am purely a clinician. The Bill seems to be an opportunity to ensure that charities in the coalition are able to locate assets bequeathed to them in supporters’ wills which remain unclaimed. One in seven of those who die leaving valid wills also leave legacy gifts to charity which, on average, amount to 5 per cent of their total estate; so potentially large amounts of legacy income have yet to reach the charities named in the wills. These legacies are an important source of voluntary income—46 per cent of the British Heart Foundation’s income comes from such legacies. The coalition urges that the Bill be strengthened, because it is reasonable to assume that charities are owed a significant proportion of the unclaimed assets in the UK. Unlike in the US, there is no mandatory register that can be used to identify assets. That issue is addressed in Amendment No. 24 and I hope to return to it when we reach that amendment.