Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

I had not intended to intervene again, but I suddenly realised that I may not have understood what is going on. My understanding of the situation—I hope the Minister will say whether I am correct—is that the banks would seek to find the owners of dormant accounts and, having failed to do so, would transfer the money to the reclaim fund. None the less, there is provision in the Bill as I understand it for someone who thinks they have a claim against a bank but failed to make it for one reason or another to make it against the reclaim fund. However, the Minister has just said, ““Ah, but that will be dealt with by the banks acting as agents for the reclaim fund””. That is what I understood him to say. One is always worried that the parliamentary draftsman might have a nervous breakdown, or perhaps has had one, but, in this case, I am concerned about the use of the words ““reclaim fund””. Whatever happens, the money is not being reclaimed from the reclaim fund; it is being reclaimed ex post from the bank. Have I understood what the Government intend—that it goes from the bank to the reclaim fund and that no information at all, apart from the total amount or perhaps the individual amounts, will go from the bank to the reclaim fund? In that case my noble friend’s amendment would be redundant at this stage because the fund does not have any information on which to break confidentiality. But that is not what I thought was happening. I thought that the reclaim fund was going to deal with the individuals who had not previously claimed from the banks.