Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 33: 33: Clause 9, page 6, line 11, leave out subsection (1) The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 33, I shall also speak to Amendment No. 35. These amendments delete subsections (1) and (2) of Clause 9 respectively on a probing basis. Clause 9 defines what is meant by ““account”” and subsections (1) and (2) appear restrictive. I should have thought that the Government would want as liberal an interpretation as possible of the definition of an account so that as much as possible could be transferred to the reclaim fund, especially in the light of the extremely narrow scope of the Bill, which we have already debated, and the scope of assets being restricted to bank and building society accounts only. Under subsection (1) the account must at all times have ““consisted only of money””. Accounts are always expressed in terms of money. That is true whether they are the accounts of banks or of, say, manufacturers. If I make widgets and buy a widget-making machine for which I pay money, I put that amount in my accounts. It is under a fixed-asset label, but it is still money. I therefore do not understand the practical impact of subsection (1) and should be grateful if the Minister would explain it. Subsection (2) restricts accounts to those that are, "““part of its activity of accepting deposits””." Again, I do not understand why the Bill has to be so restrictive. Surely if a bank or building society ends up with its customer’s money on its books, it does not much matter whether it arrived through the door labelled ““deposit taking”” or one labelled ““other financial services””. I shall ask the Minister a specific question to illustrate this point. If I have a SIPP—a self-invested personal pension—with a division of one of the banks, that SIPP will have some investments, possibly a great variety of them, but it will also have a bank account through which some of the various transactions flow. That is a statement of fact. My SIPP got that bank account because I set up the SIPP not because I wanted a bank account. Therefore, the bank account was acquired because I was accessing a non-deposit-taking financial service but ended up having made a deposit as part of that SIPP. I am trying to clarify whether a bank account associated with a SIPP or any other financial service is intended to be included within the definition of subsection (2). It seems to me that a bank’s customers do not have the internal divisions of the banks in their minds when they deal with them. Yet the Bill is predicated on some concept, which I do not quite understand, but which seems to be based on how a bank is organised. I hope that the Minister can explain that. I beg to move.