Clause 1
Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Jeremy Browne (Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury; Taunton, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out from ‘fund’ to end of line 8 and insert—
‘(i) the balance of a dormant account that a person (“the customer”) holds with it, and
(ii) the name, date of birth and last known address of that customer, and’.
May I join the previous speakers in welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Benton, and say how much I am looking forward to serving under your chairmanship? I am delighted to have the opportunity to kick off the deliberations on what the Minister rightly said is a Bill that has commanded support from all parties in the House of Lords, as well as in the House of Commons. I look forward to proceeding on that basis, but with the caveat that, as the Minister knows, we disagree on some points. As the Government do not have a natural majority in the other place, they were not able to force through provisions that the majority felt could be improved. We shall now seek to improve the Bill again with amendments in Committee.
Before I turn my mind specifically to the amendment, I am bound to say that it seems faintly peculiar that, yesterday in the Chamber, we discussed how £37 billion of public money could be put into the banking system, yet today we are discussing how a rather smaller amount can be taken out to assist public funds with youth projects and similar matters. Nevertheless, we are where we are, so we shall concentrate on what is before us.