Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 50: 50: After Clause 13, insert the following new Clause— ““Report on the dormant account arrangements (1) Within three years of the commencement of this Act, the Treasury shall prepare a report on the dormant account arrangements, including— (a) the amount of money which has been transferred to one or more reclaim funds; (b) the amount of money which the Treasury estimates will be transferred to reclaim funds in the following three years; (c) an estimate of the amount of dormant account money which could be transferred to reclaim funds; (d) the effectiveness of any arrangements that exist to reunite the owners of dormant accounts with their money; (e) the effectiveness of the arrangements made by reclaim funds to repay amounts to dormant account owners. (2) If the report shows that the dormant account arrangements are unsatisfactory in any respect, the Treasury shall state in the report how it intends to improve the arrangements and over what timescale. (3) The report shall be published and laid before each House of Parliament.”” The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 50 marks the end of Part 1 of the Bill. It calls for a report on the dormant account arrangements to be made within three years of the commencement of the Act. We have spent a great deal of time debating Part 1 and it is clear that there are a number of areas of concern about the effectiveness of both the statutory arrangements and the non-statutory arrangements which will exist in parallel with the Act. We challenged the Minister to explain how the Bill will work in practice in a number of areas, including the interface between banks and the reclaim fund in relation to repayments, and we were told that there was a lot of work to be done and that we had to be patient. We have raised a number of concerns which can be summarised as: will these voluntary arrangements work in practice? We would all like a voluntary scheme to work. Certainly we on these Benches do not want to set up regulatory structures where voluntary arrangements work perfectly well, but we also think that it is incumbent on the Treasury to monitor the outcome and, if there are causes for concern, to set out how it will deal with them. I do not start from the assumption that if these voluntary arrangements do not work the next step is statutory rules or compulsion; it may well be the renewal of a voluntary scheme. One aspect of success is that account holders can easily and speedily be reunited with their property, whether before or after their accounts have been transferred to the reclaim fund. Another is that the scheme will genuinely release significant funds for good causes. The experience of schemes outside the UK is that large sums are available. Let us judge the scheme on how well it does. Hence, the report required by this amendment focuses on the amounts that have been released and those that still could be released, as well as on the arrangements for reuniting and reclaiming. I do not believe that that will impose onerous requirements on the Treasury, as it should be monitoring these matters in any event. A published report, as required by my amendment, will allow an opportunity for public debate about the way forward if improvements are required. It might show that the scheme is a rip-roaring success and that nothing needs to be changed. That would be a cause of great celebration. However, I am sure that the Treasury would then be very eager to get the good news out. If there are matters that need to be improved to maximise the potential of the scheme or minimise the unintended consequences of the way in which the scheme has been set up, that too should have public focus. I hope that the Minister will see that the amendment is intended to help to focus on the ongoing operation of the scheme. I beg to move.