Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

I hear what the noble Viscount says, but, on the whole, creative activity on the part of Government is always attended by an element of risk. If he is saying that the Treasury might have to face some difficult days, I disavow that notion. I do not think that a body operating under the degree of public accountability applying to this one is likely to end up running so unacceptably counter to the public will that, after the Financial Services Authority has made judgments on it and it has not responded, it then finds itself with a direction from the Treasury that could lead to it being tested in a court of law. It is likely that a body whose origin was the banks and building societies seeking to remedy a problem which they had long had with dormant accounts and to bring those accounts into the public arena for the advantage of communities, will come into such a conflicting relationship with government as foreshadowed by the anxieties expressed today. However, we would be remiss if we had no answer to the question of what could be done if this body did depart almost totally from its objectives if the Government’s response was only to shrug their shoulders. We cannot possibly be in that position, which is why this reserve power is here.