Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]

That is a fair point. The hon. Gentleman is an ex-banker, although he does not shout about that quite so much at the moment. I apologise if I inaccurately referred accounts as both assets and liabilities. There is, however, a technical point to be answered on defining the asset base. My view is that the better test is whether the institution is capable of supporting a local framework of delivery. Some institutions are, but many are not. Some small local building societies would undoubtedly be able to make judgments in their own area, where their customer base still largely is, but it is also true that some institutions—the Nationwide, for instance, has received plaudits for this—are active distributors to the voluntary sector across their nationwide networks. The Nationwide has just absorbed my building society, the Derbyshire, which covers a large chunk of businesses in Derbyshire. It qualifies as a society that is well equipped for carrying out such distribution through its own means. Again, I welcomed the Chief Secretary's justification of the precise cut-off point in monetary terms rather than in capacity terms, which relates to whether an institution is capable of making such a distribution for itself and whether it would wish to. Many banks and building societies would rather pool the money with others and have the distribution carried out by an institution or expert in such matters. However, some would want to make their own judgments about that but would not qualify under the size qualification. I want to raise a small number of technical points. Customers' rights are preserved on the insolvency of a business, which in theory places someone with an unclaimed asset in a better position than any other customer of that financial institution. It is not a major point, but it is worth giving a bit more thought to how that degree of protection can be applied to a tiny minority of account holders of a society, and those whom we do not know, and whether that presents anomalies in the general protection of accounts that is offered under the financial services compensation scheme. It is also worth knowing how the mechanism identified in the Bill will work. Under the proposed arrangements, on transferring dormant accounts to the reclaimed fund, the bank has its liability to repay the customer extinguished. It enters into an agency agreement with the fund to carry out that duty on its behalf. If the institution becomes insolvent, how is that action to take place? Others have mentioned their concern about the ability of charities to go back to a source to check their entitlement to proceeds from a will. I share that concern and am a signatory to the early-day motion on that. The mechanism devised in other countries to find a name seems to work pretty well. The website here, which has received justifiable praise, requires prior knowledge, such as whether someone had an account in Derbyshire, which people are unlikely to have. In many cases, it will not be known where the accounts have been held. The mechanism needs to be much more name-based than institution-based. A reserve power, defined in the Bill, should make it possible to establish a register of the assets enabling individual charities, and others, to make claims more intuitively and effectively. As a strong supporter of mutuality, I think it important to ensure that individuals' membership rights are protected when an asset is transferred. If someone who holds an account in a building society—as I do—loses touch with it, that does not involve losing touch with a membership right that grants benefits other than merely holding the account and gaining a return from it. Although the Government's response to the Select Committee stated that the membership rights would not be changed, a little more thought is needed about what that really means. The response implies that if the details of the account are transferred to the reclaim fund, along with the task of managing it, the society must nevertheless maintain a member register with a tag relating it to an unclaimed asset that has been transferred from its balance sheet. I would welcome the Minister's assurances and explanations in relation to a number of the points that I have made, but I believe that the Bill deserves all our support, and I shall be surprised if it does not receive it, at least in qualified terms.