Dad of missing York chef Claudia Lawrence heads to Parliament
Peter Lawrence is calling for families of people who've disappeared to be allowed access to their finances.
Almost seven years since his daughter disappeared without a trace - the dad of York chef Claudia Lawrence is back in Parliament today campaigning for new legal powers for families of missing people.
Peter Lawrence wants relatives of missing loved ones to be given more control over their financial affairs.
Today - he will call for families of people who've disappeared for three months to be allowed access to their finances.
Claudia was last seen on her way to work in York in 2009.
Since then, her relatives have not been able to cancel her direct debits or pay off her debts.
Peter told Viking:
"It's obviously a long time without Claudia, we were very close and it is just so awful to not have her around.
"For a lot of people, around 2,500 people who are missing at the moment, they need to be able to look after bank accounts and mortages and things like that and in this country, amazingly, there is no way of doing that.
"The government having promised legislation with their response to the consultation a year ago, we are now putting the pressure on to make sure that they we get a parliamentary timetable to do this. It is just taking too long and the government know that people are suffering."
Peter wants families to be given 'guardianship' of their loved one's finances and said:
"Presumption of death is when you want to adminster an estate as though somebody has died, this is before you get to the stage of wanting to do that and almost immediately after a loved one goes missing. You need to be able to take care of bank accounts and things like that but currently there is no way of doing it."