Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

I agree with the sentiments expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lords, Lord Williamson and Lord Newby, that in due course we will need a review of the effectiveness of the scheme. This must be carried out carefully and evaluated against the objectives that have been set. In my business career, I was always in favour of post-implementation reviews and I think that there is much to be said for the need to hard-wire into practice post-legislative scrutiny. However, as the noble Baroness said, that is a bigger proposition, and one, perhaps, for another day. I also found myself nodding in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, when he said that the fact that it was difficult to quantify the benefit was not an excuse for not going through the exercise. As noble Lords may be aware, we have already published detailed independent evaluations of the two saving gateway pilots. The Public Bill Committee in the other place heard from researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Bristol University about how these evaluations were conducted. Building on these evaluations, we are already considering how we can most effectively test and measure the success of the scheme once it is up and running. The noble Baroness’s amendment would require us to ensure that the review was carried out on the fourth anniversary of the first issue of notices of eligibility and specifies some of the matters that would be considered in the review. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, suggests that the review be held rather earlier. I agree with the comments that have been made in this short debate that an evaluation of the success of the policy needs to take into account participants’ savings behaviour during and after the account and any barriers to participation in the scheme. Because we wish to review behaviours after the account, we tend to support the noble Baroness’s contention that a period of four years or even slightly longer is appropriate. Yet the noble Lord, Lord Newby, says that we need to be looking at impediments on the account provider side where one might argue that the review should be rather earlier. That leads me to conclude that a review is necessary and important; it will address the issues of value for money and the achievement of the declared policy objective and, importantly, it will flush out any learnings that can inform any further changes or refinement made to the saving gateway scheme. However, I am reluctant to see too much specificity about the timing and form of any review or reviews that might be required, because those might be better informed by our observed experience as saving gateway accounts are introduced. I therefore believe that the form, detail, content and timing of any review would be best finalised later, once the scheme is up and running and after further discussion with researchers, account providers, intermediaries and, in particular, financial inclusion experts. That will ensure that the design and focus of any review can take into account the experience of participants and any issues that have arisen from the operation of the scheme. On that basis, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment. However, I acknowledge the importance of having proper evaluation to address the issues that have been raised by noble Lords. If I can find a way of conceding that point in a further amendment but allowing breadth and flexibility about timing and content, I would be happy to come back with an amendment on Report.