Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

No, I will not. We need to raise taxes and target the results at the poorest people. I hoped that the saving gateway would squeeze some of the doorstep lenders out of low-income communities, which is an issue close to my heart. Those companies charge outrageous interest rates, and if people had some money saved for a rainy day, such monsters would see their customer base shrink. I also want to speak out in defence of the child trust fund, which acts as an incentive to save by adding to a Government contribution of either £250 or £500 at birth depending on a family's income. The child trust fund was well established, having been introduced for all children born since September 2002. At a cost of around £500 million a year, including additional contributions when a child reaches the age of seven, this universal yet progressive fund ensures that all children, regardless of their family income, have a pot of money that they can access at the age of 18. According to the Save Child Savings alliance, some industry data suggest that the child trust fund has seen the number of people saving for their children's futures almost treble. More than £2 billion is currently being held in child trust funds. That form of asset welfare opens doors to young adults, particularly those from low-income families. No young person has yet benefited from this fund—the first recipients are just 8 years old today—but I would have hoped that when they can start accessing it in 10 years' time, that money would go some way to improving social mobility, which is an issue that some hon. Members highlighted earlier. A policy that spreads wealth to the asset poor should be backed by anyone who is dismayed by the lack of social mobility in the UK today. Yes, education plays a major role in tackling that problem, but so do assets, which is something that the Liberal Democrats have failed to address in recent years. The Deputy Prime Minister spent some of the summer discussing the Government's programme for social mobility, but this measure goes against it. The child trust fund was one way in which the previous Labour Government hoped to tackle this issue, and scrapping it will be a step backwards. At a time when the coalition propose to increase university tuition fees, I would have thought it wise to defend child trust funds as one way in which young people could choose to shoulder at least a tiny bit of the burden of those costs. But even if they do not go to university, any funds available to 18-year-olds must give them a better start in life, which the better-off take entirely for granted. It may only help to fund their driving lessons, but that will give them the mobility and employability which would otherwise be denied. Instead, having promised huge and unnecessary cuts over the next four years, the Government must cancel valuable programmes that are relatively inexpensive. Scrapping the child trust fund is a decision made with an eye on the short-term political goal of cutting the deficit, not the long-term responsible goal of encouraging families to save for their children's future. The age group facing the most debt is 16 to 34-year-olds. Surely a responsible Government should be seriously considering measures to help the next generation of young people, particularly given that university fees are set to rise to eye-wateringly high levels. The Government are intent on pressing ahead with these family cuts, but when will the Minister tell us how the plans to fund and retain the infrastructure of the fund to enable contributions to be restarted when the economic position improves will work? I am told by the Save Child Savings alliance that it would cost £2 million a year to do so—a very small fraction of the total overall cost. There is an alternative to these draconian cuts, despite what the coalition says. Labour would deal with the deficit by halving it over four years. Yes, there would still be cuts, but we could cut carefully and always with an eye on the human impact. I am not confident that I can say the same about the coalition.