Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

Amendment 21 amends Clause 4(2)(a). The paragraph says that a saving gateway account has to be held for a period provided by regulations. The Government say that they will start with a period of two years. My amendment would continue to allow the period to be prescribed by regulations, but that it must exceed 12 months. If it is possible for the Government to specify a maturity period of less than a year, I would argue that that is not a genuine approach to creating a savings habit. I could argue that two years, the period that has emerged from the pilot studies, is also hardly enough to represent a real savings habit, but I accept that that may need to be informed in the long run by studies of savings behaviour over a long period of time. However, no matter what happens to the upper limit, I cannot see that it is a good use of public money to incentivise short-term savings, which is what a period of less than one year would amount to. I hope that the Government can agree that it should never be possible to set a saving gateway account at less than a year, and that they will be able to accept my amendment. I beg to move.