Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. It is right that the Government should always be open to listening to arguments, and when we find good, persuasive arguments, we ought to respond to them. That is what I have tried to do here. I have listened to the arguments on amendments 11 and 12, which I think are unnecessary, and I hope that the hon. Member for Fareham accepts that. On his amendments 3 and 4, I have a lot of sympathy with wanting to extend the target group, but I do not want to introduce a means test alongside a simple passporting system. We have a good basis for proceeding as we are at the moment. There is a strong case for encouraging greater take-up of qualifying benefits, and that has been an objective of the Government. We will need to continue to persuade people who are entitled to claim benefits actually to do so, and then to go on to open a saving gateway account. I appreciate the probing way in which the hon. Gentleman spoke to amendment 13. It is right that we should monitor and evaluate the saving gateway account. It is also right that we should provide sufficient information to people. We will do that, but I do not think that doing so in the way that he has specified needs to be put in the Bill. That is not the normal way in which we do things. I therefore hope that he will not press his amendments to a vote.