Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

I thank noble Lords that have spoken. I accept that there is always the possibility that reuniting can take place, but it is a fall-back and not the core activity. The amendments that I propose in this small group to Clause 10 try to ensure only that the definition is robust. As my noble friend Lord Hamilton said, computers are stupid and, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, banks do not actually exercise their common sense. This is about ensuring that a series of technical rules do not result in a non-common-sense approach and a number of accounts being declared dormant, which would be imposed on an account holder as the requirement for reuniting. That would not necessarily be something that we should seek to do. The Minister said that the banks would err on the side of protecting customers. I can say only that he is an extraordinarily optimistic man about how banks as commercial institutions acutely operate. I have tried in these amendments to ensure that the Bill protects the customer in those instances in which rules are insensitively applied, and the customer is not protected but required to go through unnecessary procedures such as reuniting.