Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

I rise to speak on clause stand part. I thought when I came here this afternoon that I was just a simple searcher after truth, but there is a bit more to it now. This clause defines a bank and then says what a bank is not. I want to be clear about ownership, and about what is and is not in the Bill. Let us look at overseas ownership. The Yorkshire Bank and the Clydesdale Bank are now Australian-owned. The Abbey National, which was demutualised, is now Spanish-owned. Are we clear that those assets are in the Bill? The British Bankers’ Association website shows the names of banks. I have led such a sheltered life that I have not come across the bank of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. I want to know who is in and who is out. For example, there is a Bank of China. I imagine that if it is in business here with a subsidiary company registered here, it is in. But if it is only a branch and there is nothing registered here, is it in or not? I do not know. On the other side of the fence, the Bank of Ireland and the Allied Irish Bank are clearly Irish, and there is an Irish scheme. What about the resources that are banked here that become dormant in a London branch of one of those banks? Similarly, HBOS is now in business in Ireland. It has only just started there, but do dormant accounts there come under the Irish scheme or this scheme? The clause refers to the United Kingdom; what is the position with Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man? The banks seem to be fond of having branches in these islands, so where do they stand? It is important to know who is in the scheme, which leads us back to that debate that we had on Amendment No. 27 on transparency. I have been thinking further about that. Transparency is a wonderful thing. If we think of looking through a shop window to see the goods, if half of them are covered up, it is not transparent. Unless we know the banks that are in this scheme, how do we know whether they are participating or not? This is a voluntary scheme, but there is a very tight and specific pool of potential volunteers and I would like to be clear about who is in it. The foreign ownership question relates to that, but where is that pool of volunteers? Surely we should be clear. There should be a transparent and clear definition of the pool of potential volunteers. I beg to move.