Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2009

I thank the Minister for introducing the order, which was of course anticipated when we passed the dormant accounts Bill, and we have no problem with it. However, the order provides him with an opportunity to update us on the progress of the dormant accounts scheme. The order is drafted, as the Act is, in terms of reclaim funds in the plural, but it was the intention of the Bill at the time that there would be one reclaim fund. The Minister’s opening remarks effectively repeated that. Will there be one reclaim fund? If so, what progress has been made on forming it—that is to say, when will we see one in existence? More importantly, when will the reclaim fund start to gather in money from the banks and building societies? The whole purpose of the Act was to liberate money from the dormant accounts held in the banks’ balance sheets and put it to good use. When can we expect money to start to flow through the system? Do the Government have any up-to-date information on the size of the flows of money to be expected? A number of estimates were provided during the Bill’s passage through both Houses of Parliament, with some wide variations between those put forward by the BBA, the Building Societies Association and some other parties. Of course, some of us suspected that the Government engineered the timing of the dormant accounts scheme to align with the timing of the next general election. The Minister might like to say whether the Prime Minister is on track to achieve his aim.