Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

I have not participated in this series of debates on the exact nature of the fund and so on, but I am becoming increasingly puzzled. It is perhaps my own fault for not having got involved in this matter earlier. As I said yesterday, I was appointed to the system which operated in Switzerland. I was just rereading the advertisement which asked people who had possible dormant accounts to come forward. It said: "““Today … the Swiss Bankers Association is publishing the list of all known … dormant accounts””," and so on. It continued: "““This initiative will be administered by an international board of trustees and supervised by the Swiss Federal Banking Commission and the Independent Committee of Eminent Persons … chaired by Paul Volcker””." So far as I can recall, there was no government involvement whatever, and I am beginning to wonder why we have this legislation. I am 100 per cent in favour of the objectives of uniting the accounts with their owners on the one hand and the money being made available for charitable purposes on the other. However, I am beginning to wonder whether the Government feel somehow that arranging it in this way will mean that some credit will fall on them because of the charitable purposes aspect. One of the concluding paragraphs in the advertisement that I have just quoted reads: "““The Swiss banks are committed to using unclaimed … funds for humanitarian or charitable purposes””," which indeed was the case. So I begin to wonder whether it is necessary to set out in detail in the legislation how the fund is to be set up, what the basis of it should be and so on. On the other hand, Schedule 1 spells out a number of bits of information without in any sense being comprehensive, and the debates that we have just had deal with the issues piecemeal. As I said, I begin to doubt whether the objectives cannot be fulfilled otherwise. If we are to go down the legislative route, I hope that between now and Report we can come up with a schedule that spells out all the points that have been picked up in the debates over the past hour or so. I do not think that you can have a schedule setting out odd bits here and there but omitting other important points.