Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

This is a probing amendment in order to seek the Government’s view on the extent to which it might be possible to extend the two-year limit of eligibility for involvement in this particular scheme. At the risk of becoming a class warrior, I strongly support the assertion made by the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, at Second Reading that there is a strong class bias in incentives to save. It is extraordinary that the Royal Bank of Scotland should be given an incentive which amounts to hundreds of thousands of pounds to enable poor Sir Fred Goodwin to have a huge pension, yet poor people saving £25 a month are told that, after a two-year period, they have had their chance. They have had their one shot to adopt a savings habit. Some of the language used about getting poor people to save is quite extraordinary. There is a sense that they should be grateful for having their one shot, whereas middle-class people, who as we go forward with the 45 per cent upper rate of tax, will be getting almost the same degree of subsidy on their pension contributions as we are proposing here, need this huge subsidy which amounts to billions of pounds a year in order for them to save. There seems to be a complete disparity in the approach to savings between two classes of people. Can the Minister answer two things? First, does this legislation allow the two-year period to be extended and, if so, to what extent? Secondly, what is the Government’s current thinking? I think that the Minister said earlier this afternoon that the two-year period was reviewable, but I would welcome any thoughts he might have on whether the Government intended to review it, and whether they have given any thought to what the outcome might be if they did so.