Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]

Let me assure the House that we would commit to keeping the issue very much on the Government's agenda, but that would also depend on what the first review concluded. If the first review concluded that the scheme was working well—that there was extensive voluntary participation, that the reclaim fund was operating efficiently and that money was going to the Big Lottery Fund and being spent in exactly the right way—it might also conclude that no further action was necessary other than to keep a watching brief. To commit ourselves to hold a review ““from time to time”” would not be a good legislative route to pursue. I should like to pick up some of the points that hon. Members have made. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) made the point in his speech and in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) that we are talking about customers' money. A great deal of time and effort has already been spent on reuniting customers with their money. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West talked about the procedures that people will need to go through to reclaim their dormant account money, so I ought to explain that doing so should be very simple. It should require no more than to take two forms of identification to one's bank or building society and say, ““I'd forgotten that I had this money in my account. This is me—please give me the money.”” All the wiring that will support subsequent claims on the reclaim fund to reimburse the bank or building society will not be seen by the customer, who will just have to undergo a simple transactional exercise, just as people go their bank or building society and withdraw money that is rightfully theirs. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) made two important points. First, he asked whether there would be an independent element in the review and noted that the clause as drafted requires that the Treasury carry it out. As we have made clear, the review will be undertaken in consultation with industry, consumer groups and the voluntary sector. We see the process as a consensual one. We do not specify in the Bill whether a Treasury official would carry out the review or whether we want to commission independent consultants to do it, but that is a decision that we would want to make at a later stage.