Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]

Absolutely. We are not making a moral judgment about the names on the list, although others may seek to do so; we simply want factual information on whether the institution in question has chosen to participate in the scheme. The hon. Gentleman made a good point when he said that the Treasury Committee, for example, could invite non-participating institutions to appear before it and discuss why they did not wish to comply. They might, of course, have good reasons. The scheme might not be working as we expected it to when we passed the legislation. The group with most cause to reflect on why the institutions were not participating might be not the institutions themselves, but the Members of Parliament who had established rules that did not work as they had wished. That would, I hope, emerge in the review in three years' time, and might make the scheme more attractive to those who had not participated but did not object, in principle, to doing so. I suspect, however, that other institutions would not have participated because they did not see participation as a core function of their organisation. I suppose that they would be right in that view, but nevertheless they would not have been willing to give up the time or effort to demonstrate the good will that would be part of complying with the scheme. They would see the benefits to society as a whole as conferring no immediate benefits to them, and would therefore regard participation as a waste of their time. That strikes me as a far less attractive reason for non-participation. All that amendment No. 11 does is enable the information to be put before us. We should not automatically draw conclusions from the composition of the list, but it would enable us and the wider public to ask further questions that would be useful in revealing the motives of organisations that had sought not to participate. For all those reasons, I consider the amendments interesting and helpful, and I hope that the Government will view them with an open mind.