Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, for his support and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for his penetrating question. The Minister’s response, that the fund should not take on a monitoring role that was onerous and would add to administrative costs by producing this information, was faintly ludicrous. We are talking about a relatively small number of institutions—60-odd building societies and 300 or 400 registered deposit-takers, I think. It would be a relatively straightforward exercise. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, has made it clear that it would take a junior clerk a short time to find out which institutions had not put any money in, so the talk of ““monitoring””, ““onerous”” and ““cost”” is complete nonsense. I cannot understand why the Government are taking this position. This is part of being a voluntary scheme. A voluntary scheme is fine—if it works. How do we know if it has worked? By being told, by the body that is in the best position to tell us, who has not taken part in it. That is the most obvious provision anyone could ever think of in order to underpin and buttress the voluntary nature of the scheme, which we have supported. If the Minister cannot support these kinds of amendment, we will have to think whether or not we support the elements of compulsion that the Liberal Democrats would like to put into the scheme. He cannot have a voluntary scheme with no checks and balances in it. I am astonished by what he has said. He will not be surprised to find that in one way or another we will be returning to this issue on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.