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Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

For a lot of people their biggest and, at the moment, most rapidly depreciating asset is indeed their home, and home ownership increased substantially in the 1980s, although to be fair to the Government, home ownership has increased substantially again during this decade as well. The problem for some people is that if they bought their homes for close to the maximum mortgage that they were permitted to take out a year or two ago, they are probably now in negative equity, but I do not doubt that for millions of our fellow citizens their house is their biggest asset and they are very pleased to own a house, or at least part of a house, and to have a mortgage on the rest. However, with regard to the Bill, we are in many cases talking about people who would not realistically be able to afford a house, although they may use the scheme as an opportunity to try to put together a sum of capital that could conceivably be used as a deposit on a property. Society is strengthened if savings and assets are widely spread. People may have views about whether the state should continue to own utilities, particularly monopoly-providing utilities, but leaving that to one side, the benefit was that people who previously did not have assets in society and a financial stake in society then did so. My party and I support the Bill because it extends those advantages, in a modest way, to perhaps the 10 or 15 per cent. of people at the lower end of the scale who would not have felt that they could participate in the savings culture in the past and may now see it as being attractive. We should all welcome that, because savings give people greater security and independence. I venture to suggest that most of us in this Chamber have the flexibility to be able to afford a one-off surprise cost. The Minister gave the example of a fridge or a washing machine breaking down and needing replacing, or there could be a school trip where the parents wish for their son or daughter to go with the rest of their classmates but are expected to make a contribution to the cost. Enough leeway should be built in to ensure that they do not get to a day or two before pay-day and have to say, ““I'm afraid we can't do that because we've run out of cash and are just trying to keep the machine running on empty until the next payment comes our way.”” They should not have to operate in that hand-to-mouth way in their personal finances. People on bigger incomes with some savings have the security of not having to do so. Inasmuch as this scheme helps people on lower incomes, it will be widely welcomed.