Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

The winter fuel allowance goes to the elderly, many of whom will have paid full national insurance contributions, and it is therefore in some sense a recompense for what they have paid in. I think that to look after the old in society is an important and virtuous thing to do. It is right to give that help so that people can be warm in their homes, but we are talking at present about £250 for children when they are born that will give them a pitiful amount a few years later. We are talking about £190 given to every woman who is going to have a baby for no necessary benefit to her because she may not need the money or it may be received too late for her to address some of the problems referred to earlier. Those two benefits are therefore unnecessary and wrong. The third benefit is the Government's matching of personal savings, and there is a misconception here. Saving from a deficit is a dis-saving to the economy because there are costs associated with allocating that saving. To put that more simply, if someone borrows money from one account to put into another account they will pay a higher rate of interest on their borrowings than they will receive on their savings so, net, the country is dis-saving by topping up savings accounts. Opposition Members are therefore wrong to say that this is an encouragement to saving. We need to look at all that is being done in the broader context. We have this phenomenal deficit—our highest peacetime deficit—which the Government have, in a workmanlike and serious-minded way, decided to tackle. They have decided to bring the deficit down so that we may have the conditions for economic growth. The essence of good government and of a sensible Treasury policy is to ensure that there are the conditions where business can thrive, jobs can be created and money can cascade through the economy. That is what really lifts people out of—