Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

I have already indicated my support for this amendment. It needs to be distinguished completely from Amendment 39, which concerns the annual report. This is a proposal for a report on the effectiveness of the saving gateway accounts. The argument that I advanced earlier that these are a rather special type of saving does apply, but none the less there are further reasons why it would be useful to have a report on the effectiveness of the accounts. One reason relates to the potential benefits of the scheme, which lie, as the Government have stated in the notes on the Bill, in encouraging people to acquire a saving habit, to build a stock of savings and to be brought into contact with mainstream financial services. Those benefits exist but, according to the Government’s documentation, they are difficult to quantify. I agree with the Government that that was the situation when the document was issued at the end of February this year. The scheme has not started and the benefits are difficult to quantify, but it would be a good idea to try to quantify them and to see how effective the scheme is. I support this scheme but, when it has been running for some time, we need to know whether it is working or not. For that reason, I support the amendment.