Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am glad that the Minister accepts where I stand. I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for their comments. In an idle moment this morning, I looked at those building society websites that I could find. Without access to the registers, I do not know where the members live; but one way of looking at this is to find where the branches are. I looked at the websites of the Skipton Building Society and the West Bromwich Building Society. Most branches of the Skipton are in Yorkshire and most branches of the West Bromwich are in the West Midlands. Most branches of the Chelsea are in London and most branches of the Leeds Building Society and the Yorkshire Building Society are in Yorkshire. I did accept at the outset that the Nationwide was just that. But as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, indicated, it was based on the old Co-operative Permanent Building Society, which decided in 1970 to cheer itself up with a new name. I would venture that the reason that it did not demutualise was because of its co-operative roots—it is the only one of the very big societies that did not demutualise, even though the rest of the big eight are far smaller. I would submit that since that wave of demutualisations, the mutuals—I have seen this on the websites—have said, ““Look, we have got to be proud about being mutual, we have got to say there is something special about being mutual””. They say that their generosity is special—I refer, for example, to the percentages of profits that they put into charitable foundations and the fact that they bring in independent people to disburse these funds. It was interesting that the Minister said, a few moments ago, that all building societies were ““allowed””. Allowed? This is a voluntary act, we are told. But the building societies do not want to volunteer in that way. They are happy to volunteer in another way and to use the alternative scheme. On that basis, I believe that this is the time to test the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 195; Not-Contents, 141.