§ Mr. Weetchasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, according to the latest annual returns, submitted to the Registry of Friendly Societies, how many building societies are currently operating, how many have regional or local boards of directors, and how many directors sit on building society boards in total.
§ Mr. LawsonAs at 31 October 1980 there were 274 registered building societies of which 18 were subject to orders made by the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies restricting their operation.
Building societies are not required to furnish information concerning regional and local boards of direectors and the number of societies having such boards could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost. In total 1,935 directors sit on building society boards acording to the latest returns made to the Chief Registrar for 1979–80.
§ Mr. Weetchasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many directors of building societies are over 60, 70 and 75 years of age, respectively, according to the returns to the Registry of Friendly Societies.
§ Mr. LawsonAggregate statistics of ages of directors are not maintained for building societies as a whole and the information requested could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
§ Mr. Weetchasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many building society directors in individual building societies notified to the Registry Office, under section 5 of the Building Societies Act 1962, have been appointed from the senior staffs on the same or other building societies during the last five-year period.
§ Mr. LawsonThe information requested is neither required by section 75 of the Building Societies Act 1962 39W nor sought by the Registry of Friendly Societies in the returns which building societies are required to furnish. It could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
§ Mr. Weetchasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many existing building society directors, currently under the supervision of the Registrar of Friendly Societies, are directors of property development firms or property construction companies.
§ Mr. LawsonThe information requested is not available to the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
§ Mr. Weetchasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what plans he has to replace the Building Societies Act 1962 with fresh legislation;
(2) if he has any plans to seek powers to improve the ability of building societies' members to influence affairs of their societies and make directors and managers more accountable to their membership.
§ Mr. LawsonAs I stated in the reply to my hon. Friend, the Members for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) and Reading, North (Mr. Durant) on 8 August the Government intend to apply to building societies the first EEC Directive on Credit Institutions by means of regulations to be made in the Session of Parliament under the European Communities Act 1972. We have no immediate plans for primary legislation; we shall be considering this further when the EEC directive has been implemented.—[Vol. 990, c.416.]