Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

At the risk of sounding somewhat graceless, I, too, wish the Government had gone a little bit further and had done this with a little less reluctance, but having said that, I am pleased that the amendments are in place and that this degree of progress has been made. The Bill itself says very little. Anybody who picks up a copy from the Vote Office will not necessarily be very well informed about the nature of the scheme. There are 29 delegated powers in a Bill that has only 32 clauses. I will not give an exhaustive list as I did that in Committee, but the Government are, for example, able to do the following: change the rules governing the issuance of a notice of eligibility; change the rules governing the approved institutional criteria used by HMRC; limit the size of monthly deposits; decide the level of the maturity payment; and impose requirements relating to statements. There is a whole list of criteria that the House is being asked to nod through and to allow the Government to make those changes as they see fit at a later date. The fact is that those changes are substantial to the scheme. We do not have the ability we might wish to influence the details, as they are left out of the Bill. Having said that, some progress is clearly better than no progress. Lords amendment 8 asserts the use of the affirmative procedure to decide the maturity period, the definition of an eligible person, and the requirements for opening an account. That is definitely going in the right direction, because without proper discussion of such details in the House we would be asked to approve a shell of a proposal with very little meat inside it. It is, however, a shame that we are not being asked to vote for a Bill which has specific measures such as the 50p rate, the two-year maturity period and the £25 a month deposit limit. That is not treating the House in the way that it should be treated. I am enthusiastic about the amendments as they are preferable to what existed before, but the Government could have gone further still.