Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that explanation and for stating clearly how the Government intend to respond to the issues that I raised in connection with Amendment 12. On Amendment 11, which concerns account holders, the Minister said that child trust funds are different from tax credits, which of course they are. The difference is not that there happen to be end of year adjustments for tax credits and that it is an annual payment. That is not the important issue. The important issue is that the recipients are fundamentally the same and they are not financially very clever. They do not have the expertise that many others have; that, indeed, is what was found before. While some of the errors that led to problems in child trust funds were in relation to end-of-year adjustments, some were not. Some were HMRC putting in the wrong figures in the first place, which resulted in overpayment. To some extent, therefore, the two can be placed on all fours. Of course, we do not yet know whether the child trust fund system will result in a lot of problems. While HMRC has paid money into child trust fund accounts, we will not know whether there will be problems with recovery from individuals until those child trust fund accounts mature, which relatively few have—probably only in the case of disabled children or those who have already died—so we have no evidence from that yet. I take the Minister’s point that the Bill is sufficiently wide to allow a change to be made at a later stage if problems emerge. I hope that the Government will be more vigilant than they were when tax credits came out, and stand ready to use that power if it should ever prove necessary. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 11 withdrawn. Amendment 12 not moved.