Clause 1 - Child trust funds
Child Trust Funds Bill
9:30 am
Mr George Osborne (Tatton, Conservative)
I am not sure that a change to ''baby bonds'' would be misleading, if that is what everyone thinks that they are anyway; it might be misleading to proceed with a name that no one is aware of, and people may not be aware of what child trust funds are.
The blame for the name ''baby bonds''—if we are looking for blame—rests entirely with the Government's information sheet and Government spin doctors. After the policy was announced in the run-up to the 2001 general election and Budget, No. 10 Downing street briefed on it extensively, and we were told, ''Brown to announce baby bonds in Budget'', and so on. I am merely saying that ''baby bonds'' is what everyone calls them, and that is how everyone knows
them. We in Westminster are often accused of speaking in a parallel language that no one understands.