Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Indeed, the tax models for ISAs and pensions are different. With an ISA, the income and gains are tax-exempt, which is one of their incentives. I believe that child trust fund eligibility should end for children born from January 2011, as the Bill provides, and not from any other date. I continue to believe that ending eligibility is the right thing to do. I know that some find that disappointing, but in the middle of the exceptional fiscal challenge that we are facing, it simply does not make sense to continue to spend half a billion pounds a year on giving people money that is locked up until the age of 18. There are more urgent priorities, and the child trust fund is a luxury that we cannot afford. I wish now to refer to the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East and the wider points raised in his new clause and amendment that were not selected. I understand his point about looked-after children, who are among the most disadvantaged young people in our society and face a number of particular challenges that mean they need additional support. As he said, we met last week to discuss the matter, and he outlined to me the proposal that he has referred to today. As I said then, I have a lot of sympathy with what he is trying to achieve, and I want to consider the matter more closely. Indeed, I have already written to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), to ask his views on the proposal. We will have to consider it carefully, but as I have said a number of times during debates on the Bill, we have limited resources at the moment and there is currently no unallocated funding in the Department for Education budget that could be used for the suggested payments. We would also have to be sure that they were the best use of our resources and gave us the best possible value for money. As I have said, there is also the question of whether locking up money for up to 18 years provides better value than spending it to support people now, and we need to ensure that we focus resources on our priorities. We will also have to consider what the proposal would leave children with. As the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East explained, the provision would not be triggered until a child had been in care for at least 13 weeks, to avoid junior ISA accounts being opened for children who were in care for only a week or so. We know that, thankfully, most children are not in care for long periods. Of the children who left care in 2009-10, about 37% were in care for less than six months. I will therefore wish to consider how many children would receive accounts containing just the £250 Government payment that he suggests, and whether those accounts would necessarily provide good value. However, as I have said, I am more than happy to continue to consider the proposal with my hon. Friend at the Department for Education, and I certainly commit to maintaining contact with the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East. I reassure him that if we do want to move forward with his proposal or something similar, the Bill will not be the right vehicle for doing so. It may be possible to legislate on the matter alongside the provisions on junior ISAs, or even to introduce them without legislation. Not including them in the Bill does not close down our options. I understood the right hon. Gentleman's points on amendments 51 and 52, which were selected, but there are practical reasons not to accept them. First, as I have said, we are still looking closely at our options, and that may end up making the reports called for in those amendments unnecessary. Secondly, if we wanted such reports to be produced, requiring their completion by the end of 2011 would be too early. By then, child trust funds would only just have stopped being opened, as the last vouchers are not expected to expire until well into 2012, and junior ISAs would have been in place for only a few months. Thirdly, I suggest that even if we did want to carry out the reports that the right hon. Gentleman suggests, we could do so without having them specified in the Bill. In fact, leaving them out of the Bill would provide us with more flexibility on both content and timing.