Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 47: 47: Clause 13, page 7, line 14, at end insert— ““( ) Where the directors of a company that is a bank are required by section 415(1) of the Companies Act 2006 (c. 46) (duty to prepare directors’ report) to prepare a report for a particular financial year, the report must state the amount of payments transferred to a reclaim fund under section 1 or if no such transfers were made that fact must be stated.”” The noble Baroness said: We now move on to a wholly different topic—with a wholly different Minister. In moving Amendment No. 47, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 48 and 49 in this group. The amendments home in on Clause 13, which deals with disclosure in directors’ reports. The clause is narrowly drawn so that it applies only to the disclosure by banks if they are taking part in a Clause 2 scheme—it will apply only to those banks with balance sheets below £7 billion which have chosen to take part in the alternative distribution scheme. Amendment No. 49 inserts a new clause after Clause 13 requiring similar information to that in Clause 13 to be given in the directors’ reports of building societies which have taken part in the alternative Clause 2 scheme. I cannot see the distinction between small banks and small building societies when it comes to disclosure. Indeed, the relationship between a mutual and its members should make it even more important for a building society to communicate in this way to its members. Amendments Nos. 47 and 48 are slightly different in that they require information to be contained in the directors’ reports of companies that have transferred money to a reclaim fund under the main Clause 1 scheme. The information disclosure is of the amount paid to the reclaim fund or, if no such transfers were made, to state that fact. In relation to information released by the reclaim fund under Schedule 1, I have already said that transparency should be an important element of this scheme. In that instance, I argued for the reclaim fund to disclose who had paid money under the dormant accounts scheme, and we had a lively debate on that amendment last year. I also believe that the banks themselves should be required to state publicly what they have paid over or, if they have not participated in the scheme, to say so. I do not believe that there is any downside to this other than the possible need for a bank to explain why it was not participating, but that would be no bad accompaniment to this voluntary scheme. I have not yet drafted an amendment which requires large building societies to make disclosures comparable to those in Amendment No. 47. That was an omission on my part. However, if the Minister were prepared to look kindly on these amendments, that could be rectified before Report. I beg to move.