Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

I agree with the Government—I do not support the amendment—but I want to make a couple of points. I declare an interest: I am the father of an eligible person and my wife and I are both carers, although we are do not fall under the Minister’s definition. I am 100 per cent in favour of the Minister’s amendment although I am not personally covered by it. I am content with the proposed approach to management. Amendment 40, which we will come to later, would involve looking back and seeing how things were provided and how far the system had worked to achieve its objectives. I am in favour of that amendment. Following the principle that when you want to make a point and there are an awful lot of amendments, it is easiest to make it on Amendment 1, I want to put one point to the Minister—it is not a critical point but it is of real interest. I want the Minister to comment on the provision in the Explanatory Notes on the way in which the system will work; that is, the third example. That involves someone who saves money for, say, the first year and gets up to £300 and then he or she draws out some money; at the end of the year, there would be substantially less in the account. None the less, the payment from the taxpayer would relate to the highest figure; it would relate not to the amount of money in the account at the end but to the amount of money that was in the account before some of it was withdrawn. In a sense, I do not object to that because the arrangement is very favourable to the saver, but it involves a rather odd proposition. The reality is that many people will put money in for a short period—I know quite a lot of the type of people who are eligible here—but, unfortunately, there will be something that they really want to buy and they will withdraw some of it. When we get to the end, there will be quite a lot of people who do not have in their account the full amount that was originally put in. Even so, the taxpayer and the Treasury are to pay 50p, which is related to a much higher figure than the amount in the account at the end. I do not object to that but, if I may say so, it involves a rather curious proposition. I invite the Minister to comment on this point, although its relevance to Amendment 1 is a little marginal. However, it is important, and I really do believe that that is what will happen under this scheme: people will put money in and, even if they draw some out, they will get benefit on a much reduced account.