Schedule 1
Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [Lords]
11:45 am
Ian Pearson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Dudley South, Labour)
The Government recognise that the amended Bill will require the reclaim fund to report directly to Government and to Parliament. We argued in the other place that the requirements then already in the Bill should satisfy any concerns about transparency. However, we have reflected carefully, and the Government’s amendments today show that we have listened to the debate and are seeking to reinforce transparency.
It remains our view that requiring the reclaim fund to lay its annual accounts and reports before Parliament is inappropriate and out of keeping with the Bill. When we come to debate clause 6, I will seek to remove that requirement. The Bill sets out how the reclaim fund will be constituted. It does not establish a reclaim fund; that is the task for the industry. Therefore, the reclaim fund will be independent of Government.
Transparency is crucial to the scheme, and as a result of being formed as a company under the Companies Act 2006, the reclaim fund will be required to prepare annual accounts and reports each year. Government amendments Nos. 21 to 25 will require the reclaim fund to publish the information as soon as possible after the end of each financial year, so that it will be available for all to see, including Members.
In addition, I remind the Committee that schedule 1 already requires the reclaim fund to publish annually a list of institutions participating in the scheme; the amounts of money transferred into the scheme by individual institutions; the amounts of money reclaimed by customers from individual institutions; and the aggregate amount passed to the BLF. Therefore, that information will also be available for public scrutiny.
I should like to respond to amendment No. 27, which would require the reclaim fund to publish the names of all banks and building societies that do not participate in the scheme. That amendment is not necessary. A complete list of all banks and building societies operating in the UK is already available from the FSA’s website. I can confirm that the FSA updates the list regularly, so it would be easy to compare it with the list of participating institutions, which the reclaim fund would publish as soon as possible after the end of the financial year.
These Government amendments indicate our strong commitment to transparency. We have listened to debate in the other place. That is one of the reasons why we have introduced our amendments today.