Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Act 1955

5 Unclaimed dividends etc. on Government stock

(1) After the coming into force of this section, no transfer of unclaimed stock or payment of unclaimed dividends or redemption moneys shall be made by the Bank to the National Debt Commissioners under Part VII of the National Debt Act, 1870, or paragraph 6 of the Third Schedule to the Finance Act, 1921.

(2) The Bank shall from time to time pay to the National Debt Commissioners sums equal to the aggregate amount of all moneys due on Government stock which having been entrusted to the Bank for payment are unclaimed, other than moneys in respect of which a payment has already been made to the Commissioners under this subsection or under any earlier enactment relating to unclaimed dividends or redemption moneys on Government stock.

(3) For the purposes of the last foregoing subsection any moneys due on Government stock and not claimed by the person entitled shall be deemed to be unclaimed if a period of five years, or in the case of redemption moneys two years, has elapsed since the due date, but the Bank may treat any such moneys as unclaimed before the expiration of that period.

(4) Where the Bank make a payment under subsection (2) of this section in respect of any moneys due on Government stock, and afterwards pay those moneys to the person entitled, the amount paid to the National Debt Commissioners in respect of those moneys shall be repaid by them to the Bank.

(5) Any sums paid to the National Debt Commissioners under this section otherwise than in respect of unclaimed redemption moneys shall be placed to their account of unclaimed dividends, and any repayment by them to the Bank under subsection (4) of this section otherwise than in respect of redemption moneys shall be made out of that account.

(6) Any sums paid to the National Debt Commissioners under this section in respect of unclaimed redemption moneys shall be invested by them in the purchase of such Government stock as the Treasury may from time to time direct, and the investments shall be placed to the Commissioners' account of unclaimed redemption moneys with the investments made by virtue of paragraph 6 of the Third Schedule to the Finance Act, 1921.

(7) The dividends received by the National Debt Commissioners on the investments of their account of unclaimed redemption moneys shall be placed to their account of unclaimed dividends, and any repayment by the Commissioners in respect of redemption moneys whether under subsection (4) of this section or otherwise shall be made out of those investments or, if they are insufficient, out of the account of unclaimed dividends.

(8) The Treasury may from time to time empower the Bank to investigate the circumstances of any sums due on Government stock and not claimed with a view to ascertaining the persons entitled, and may allow the Bank such compensation as the Treasury think just for the Bank's trouble and expense in that behalf; and any such compensation shall be paid by the National Debt Commissioners out of their account of unclaimed dividends.

(9) If at any time the National Debt Commissioners certify to the Treasury that the sums standing to the credit of the Commissioners' account of unclaimed dividends are not sufficient to meet the payments to be made out of that account, the amounts needed to meet those payments shall be issued out of the Consolidated Fund; but where at the end of any financial year the sums standing to the credit of the account exceed one hundred thousand pounds or such other figure as the Treasury may from time to time determine, the excess shall be applied in such manner as the Treasury may direct towards the redemption of the National Debt.

(10) In the foregoing provisions of this section—

(a) the expression " the Bank " means the Bank of England, except in relation to stock entered in the books of the Bank of Ireland and to moneys due on any such stock, and in relation to stock so entered and moneys due thereon means the Bank of Ireland;

(b) the expression " Government stock" has the same meaning as in the Savings Banks Act, 1893.

(11) Subsections (2) to (6) of this section shall not apply to stock entered in the books of the Bank of Ireland kept in the office of their Accountant-General at Dublin or moneys due on any such stock, and, subject to subsection (7) of this section, Part VII of the National Debt Act, 1870, (except sections sixty-three and sixty-five) and paragraph 6 of the Third Schedule to the Finance Act, 1921, shall continue to apply thereto.

(12) In subsection (3) of section one of the War Loan (Supplemental Provisions) Act, 1915 (which, among other things, enables regulations under that section to provide for the application with modifications of any provisions of the National Debt Act, 1870, to stock or securities inscribed or registered in the post office register), the reference to the National Debt Act, 1870, shall include a reference to subsections (1) to (6) of this section; but until the coming into force of regulations made by virtue of this subsection, nothing in this section except subsection (7) shall affect the operation in relation to any such stock or securities of paragraph 6 of the Third Schedule to the Finance Act, 1921, or of any regulations in force at the passing of this Act under the said Act of 1915.

(13) Subsections (2) to (5) of this section shall apply to annuities for years to which Part I of the Government Annuities Act, 1929, applies, as they apply to Government stock.

(14) Except in so far as the contrary intention appears, references in this section to any previous enactment shall be construed as references to that enactment as amended or applied by or under any other enactment.

(15) Subject to subsections (11) and (12) of this section, the enactments specified in Part III of the Second Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent specified in the third column of that Schedule.