Hand over contents of dormant accounts to charity, says MP
Howard Lake | 21 May 2003 | News
Martyn Jones, the MP for Clywd South, has tabled an early day motion proposing to divert money in dormant bank and building society accounts to benefit charity.
Under the proposal, money that has lain dormant for 15 years would be transferred to an independent account which would be used to make grants to charities and community groups.
The amount of dormant money is not known but estimates vary from £20 billion to £80 billion.
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Should the rightful owner be traced, then they would retain the right to reclaim their money from the fund.
The proposal is based on the experience of the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Dormant Accounts Act 2001 came into effect this year and within one month ‚€200m (£143m) had already been transferred to the fund.
Read “MP calls for UK to follow Ireland by ‘seizing’ for charity the £20bn in dormant” (sic) at Professional Fundraising.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.