Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]

I heard the hon. Gentleman make that suggestion in his contribution, and if he feels that strongly about it, I am surprised that he has not tabled an appropriate amendment for discussion today. Naturally, we welcome all constructive suggestions about how relationships can be improved, and my understanding of the charities movement is that, yes, it has some concerns. It wants to continue putting pressure on banks and building societies to do all they can to ensure that there are simpler arrangements so that the movement can get its rightful money. However, I must stress that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) pointed out, the issue is not just about charities. The key question is, how do we ensure that the rightful owners of dormant accounts are reunited with their property so that only genuinely dormant accounts are transferred to the scheme? The proposals are right and fair for customers, because, after all, it is their money. Whether it involves the estates of deceased persons, or individuals who have simply forgotten where they have put their money, both have similar rights, and we must continue to focus on reuniting them with the property that is rightly theirs. The Government welcome the commitment of the banks and building societies to a major reunification exercise in the run-up to the scheme becoming operational, and, in particular, we welcome the launch by the British Bankers Association, the Building Societies Association and National Savings & Investments of the ““mylostaccount”” website in January, to which Members have already referred. Almost 190,000 people have already used this free cross-industry service to reunite themselves with tens of millions of pounds. We welcome the commitment of individual institutions to institution-by-institution efforts to reunite. We have seen the fruits of that through high-profile efforts by HBOS, Lloyds TSB, HSBC and Nationwide. My strong advice to individuals who think that they might have a bank, building society or national savings account or premium bonds of which they have lost track is that they should go to www.mylostaccount.org.uk. The service is free; people tap in their basic information—name and current and previous addresses—and can make multiple searches for free. If people are owed money from such accounts, they can find where it is and get access to it. They need not go to commercial fee-charging services for the privilege; the process is simple. The ““mylostaccount”” website already allows executors, nominated representatives and even beneficiaries of wills to conduct searches for lost accounts. Executors can ensure that anyone or any institution, including charities, due legacy income from moneys in dormant accounts receives their entitlement. I would expect an executor, as part of the reasonable steps that they should take, to go to the minimal trouble of visiting the website, feeding in basic information and checking whether any money of which they are not aware is due to the relevant heirs and successors. That would be an eminently reasonable and proportionate step for executors to take. The current arrangements are working and will continue to be effective in allowing people to be reunited with their money. We will, of course, keep the matter under review; the review clause on which we voted a few moments ago will include a review of the effectiveness of reuniting arrangements, so the issue will not be forgotten. However, I should like to repeat the concerns that I set out in Committee about a register and the power to introduce one. First, it is important to recognise that financial institutions must respect the confidentiality of the information that they hold about their customers. Transferring such information to a central source would in effect require banks to breach that confidentiality; it is difficult to see how that would be compatible with the framework of current UK law on confidential information and data protection, and it would raise human rights issues. I am not saying that it would be impossible to do but, as the hon. Member for Fareham suggested, it would raise significant issues about the overall design of the scheme. The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) said that other countries had similar schemes, but obviously he is aware that other countries have compulsory schemes, whereas we are proposing a voluntary scheme.