Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]

The Bill is clearly a good measure, supported by all parties and improved during its passage through Parliament. I shall make one short, broad point and reinforce a specific point that I made earlier. While not taking assets from people against their will and always respecting the rights of private ownership that are upheld in documents such as the European convention on human rights, we are right to ascertain, as public policy, whether private assets can be used for the public benefit rather than not used at all. We have done similar things over the years. Mercifully, since the last war, we have released people who are mentally ill from asylums where they had been locked away for decades. They had something to give, and society has realised that people with mental illness can make a huge contribution. We have also realised that in the case of people with disabilities, who were often hidden away—