Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 9: 9: Clause 2, page 2, line 1, leave out ““smaller”” The noble Baroness said: I was not expecting the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, to approach his amendment in the way that he did. As I explained earlier, I thought he was talking about compulsion, which is the way in which Amendment No. 8 is drafted. It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I deal with the next two groups together because they cover similar issues. Amendments Nos. 9 and 13 and our opposition to Clause 9 standing part of the Bill are designed to take out limits from the Bill so that all banks and all building societies have the option of entering the alternative scheme in Clause 2. This is distinct from the amendments to which the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, spoke, where he suggested that the larger banks could perhaps put 10 per cent of their reclaim money through the Clause 2 scheme. I suggest that they should have the option of putting the whole amount through if they want to do so. The amendments would achieve this. The Government’s defence of segregating banks and building societies is that they believe the larger financial institutions should go into the main scheme so that the money goes via the Big Lottery Fund, as the Minister said. In fact, in their summary of responses they said it was more appropriate given the wider outlook of the larger financial institutions. What they mean by ““wider outlook”” is that the larger financial institutions want the Government to decide where their money goes, in this case to the Big Lottery Fund. This ignores the fact that large financial institutions can have clear relationships with the communities in which they operate. All large financial institutions have branch networks and strong community bases even though they are not confined to one particular community. The Clause 2 scheme is not restricted to communities; it can also apply to charities with which the banks or building societies consider they have a special connection. One can think of a lot of large institutions that have a special connection with particular charities that they have built up over a long period of time. Some banks, such as Northern Rock, have their own foundations, rather like building societies—Northern Rock was a building society. Clear mechanisms that allow the money to be spent do exist. My first group of amendments asks why large financial institutions cannot reflect the fact that they have branches throughout the land and well established connections with specific charities. They fit fully within the concept of Clause 2 and would direct the money to causes that they would have thought about carefully, and that would be aligned with things that they want to achieve. Why is that worse than transferring money via the Big Lottery Fund? There is a sense in which the Minister was saying earlier that somehow the Government now own the money that comes from the larger financial institutions; they can spend it on things that they want it spent on and can ignore the wishes of others. Amendments Nos. 10, 14, 17 and 18 form the next group. They have been pressed on us by Nationwide, the largest building society in the world, which has spoken to a number of Peers and has been very active in presenting its case. The Minister said earlier that there was a consensus that small building societies should have the alternative provisions. That is probably the consensus among building because there are more smaller building societies than large ones. There are only eight above the £7 billion threshold and 50-odd below it so there will be a natural consensus within the building society community, but that does not make it right that large building societies should be deprived of joining the alternative scheme in Clause 2. As the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, has already explained, Nationwide has a foundation that has existed for a long period of time. It has committed to putting a certain amount of its profits into it every year and that has been approved by its members in general meeting. It is very committed to that foundation, and wants the ability to put further resources into it. I am struggling to see why the Minister goes against good voluntarism closely associated with causes and projects that have clearly had a lot of thought put into them, and instead goes for the big black hole of the Big Lottery Fund. I am sure that good will come out of it, but it has less immediacy. It is always difficult to draw dividing lines. The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, raised the case of the Skipton Building Society. It is local and not that much above the £7 billion threshold compared with some of the larger building societies. I have another concern about the Government’s approach that smaller building societies can have the alternative scheme. That will skew money into certain communities, because I suspect that most of the smaller building societies are not based in conurbations such as London. From a quick look at the list, I could see only one building society that had a connection with London. That means that Londoners will be deprived of targeted money, although they have branches of banks and building societies everywhere. That seems unfair. My first group of amendments suggests that we should allow all financial institutions the choice of whether to go into the alternative scheme in Clause 2. If that is not acceptable to the Government, they should at least allow building societies, with their mutuality and their close connection with their members and their communities, to support the schemes that they have so successfully developed. I beg to move.