Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

There was clearly a choice. We could have continued with these schemes and cut spending elsewhere, but we decided that it was better to take action now to tackle the deficit than to put that decision off, as the hon. Gentleman's party would do, and therefore have to make deeper cuts in the future. I think the steps we are taking are the right course of action to tackle the deficit. Although the previous Government had agreed with RBS and Lloyds Banking Group that they would introduce saving gateway schemes, none of the other big high street banks were planning to do so, and although the Post Office was going to offer the accounts, that was only because the previous Government had agreed to pay it to enable it to do so. Also, while a number of credit unions were signed up, not a single building society signed up to provide the saving gateway account. Therefore, although I appreciate the engagement of those who had planned to offer saving gateway accounts, I was concerned that not everyone in the eligible population would have had an accessible provider. For these reasons, we announced at the Budget that the saving gateway would not be introduced. We therefore stopped the Saving Gateway Accounts Act from coming into force, and this Bill repeals it altogether. Although we may want to come back to this idea at some point in the future, we have no plans to do so at present so it would be wrong to leave this legislation on the statute book.