---

Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

One of the purposes of our pilots was to explore such issues. We concluded that people should be given help with the savings that they made each month for two years, and that at the end of that period they should be able to decide what they wanted to do with the sum, but an account would be available for it. The evidence from the pilots suggested that people continued to save after the expiry of the two-year period, but obviously people will make different decisions. Some people will decide that they have saved the money for a purpose, in order to buy or do something. It is right for people to be able to make such decisions themselves, but we believe that the pilots had a significant impact. Those involved in them spoke very positively about the effects. One participant said:"““We now realise the importance of saving for a rainy day or emergency...It's definitely made a difference.””" A participant in the second pilot said:"““They gave you that push forwards, they gave you that step forward that a lot of people find hard to take into saving. Once that happened, it was easier to carry on from there.””" The outcome of the pilots, between them, was that people saved more than £15 million and earned more than £5 million in Government contributions. People did save more. In the first pilot, which involved a higher matching rate, the number of people saving regularly quadrupled, and the amount being saved each month doubled.