Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]

I apologise for not having been able to be present for all of the debate so far. Parliamentary business took me away, causing me to miss what I am sure was an excellent contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban), with which I would no doubt have strongly agreed. I apologise to him, in his absence. Since then, however, I have heard contributions from other Members, including the Chief Secretary, who not only made a very good speech in support of her Bill but displayed open-mindedness over the potential of the Committee stage in respect of a number of the issues that have been raised. I think that the House will welcome that; I certainly welcome her attitude. I returned in time to hear the hon. Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) express his well-thought-out objections to the Bill. I must say that while none of us want to be friends of bankers nowadays, I do not take his dim view of the banking industry, so I did not entirely agree with many of his observations. I thought that the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) made a very good speech about the pinch points that remain in the Bill, which I am sure will be raised in Committee. The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) gave an excellent presentation of his experience on the Select Committee. I strongly agree—and I wish to make this the thrust of my own speech—that if we are to have the proposed register, it should be based much more on names than on institutions if it is to have a realistic prospect of reuniting people with their assets. I support the Bill and its intentions. I think that it proposes a very good use of money that is lying dormant in bank accounts. Bearing in mind the statement that we heard earlier, however, I worry slightly about whether now is the moment to introduce such legislation. Perhaps we shall return to that issue in Committee. As was observed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), if we face such a dire situation in the banking industry, it may be worth considering a delay in the implementation date of what is nevertheless a worthy Bill. I am sure that we can all argue about whether 15 years is long enough for assets to lie dormant, and about whether the Big Lottery Fund is the right body to distribute the money. I share reservations that other Members may feel about that, and no doubt views will differ on whether the Government have identified the right organisations to benefit. I respect their mandate to decide such issues, however, so I shall set my reservations aside and agree to agree with them in that regard. I wish merely to make an appeal on behalf of charities that have contacted me. Enthusiasm for the good causes that will benefit from the Bill may make it easy to lose sight of the fact that this money belongs to someone. It may belong to someone who is alive, or it may once have belonged to someone who is now dead and who will almost certainly have left a will expressing intentions about how the money should be used. One in seven of those who leave wills bequeath money to a charitable organisation, amounting to about 5 per cent. of their estates. Whether we are talking about £500 million or billions of pounds—for we do not know how much the Bill will liberate—we are talking about an awful lot of money that could go to the charitable sector. The wishes of the money's owner could be respected if it were given to, for instance, Cancer Research UK—which has contacted me—the British Heart Foundation, which receives some 47 per cent. of its funding through legacies, or a range of other charities, all of which do fantastic work and rely heavily on legacies to maintain their core funding, their fundraising activities being in addition to that. I think it behoves Parliament to consider charities' worries about the inadequacies that they see in the Bill at present. They want to be sure of being able to identify and claim their assets. I am sure that the Minister has seen early-day motion 1581, which refers to the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition. I think that its request is modest and reasonable. It suggests that we should see whether a voluntary scheme works, but also take the precaution of stating in the Bill that if a case can be put in the triennial review that it has not been seen to work, the Bill will provide for the establishment of a different kind of register that will enable charities to claim their assets much more effectively. That would not bind the present Parliament, and would not impose an excessively bureaucratic burden on banks—which I understand is what worries Conservative Front Benchers, and we can all understand that at the moment. It would, however, mean that we would not need to have recourse to primary legislation again if we wanted to devise a more robust system. Powers in the Bill could be activated on the advice of a future Parliament. As was suggested by the hon. Member for South Derbyshire, the online traceability scheme relies on knowledge of the name of an institution that might hold assets that a charity might feel belonged to it. As we all know, perhaps from our own experience but certainly from the experiences of friends and family, it is easy to forget about small amounts of money in a bank account. We may change our name or address, we may lose the paperwork, the box may be in the attic; but it is easy to lose track of small amounts if, for certain reasons, we have opened a variety of bank accounts. Without a name with which to trace someone—people's lives change: they may get married, change their names for other reasons, or move house—it is easy to lose sight of bank accounts. That is particularly true when someone dies, and the relatives must perform the horrible business of clearing up that person's life and financial accounts. I completely understand that there are concerns about fraud, but successful schemes that have brought forth a much easier way of tracing people's accounts and assets already exist in America and Ireland. The ambition of the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition, which comprises sixty charities, is modest; all they are asking is for the legislation to include a chance to revisit this issue if the Government's good intentions set out in the Bill are not as successful as they might be. I welcome the Economic Secretary to his new role at the Treasury, alongside his other responsibilities elsewhere in Government, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say later.