Clause 27 - Commencement
Child Trust Funds Bill
3:00 pm
Mr George Osborne (Tatton, Conservative)
I am sorry that I was not invited to the IPPR summit, and I am sorry that one has to be a member of the Labour party to be invited to such a summit. I thought it was an open and independent think tank, but apparently not.
I thought that the Minister's resting on the manifesto pledge was—of all times in this Parliament—a particularly weak argument with the tuition fees coming up. I have to concede that Treasury Ministers, particularly those at the top, are doing their best to ensure that the Government stick to their manifesto commitments. The Minister is making a mistake in not keeping open the option of delaying the introduction of the scheme. I suppose she does have the option in a sense: she can decide when it is introduced.
There is a huge amount of administrative work to be done, and the financial providers have a tight timetable to work to. We still do not have the detailed
regulations, and since we now know the date of the Report stage, the Minister does not have much time to come up with those regulations before the Bill leaves the House, which in an earlier sitting she made a commitment to do. She, too, has a tight timetable.
The last thing that anyone who supports child trust funds wants is for the scheme to be launched in a period of administrative chaos. There will be some chaos if there is a general election, as the hon. Member for Yeovil makes clear, because half of the advertising campaign would not be allowed to happen. The Minister has made it clear that she sees the launch of child trust funds as a great opportunity to carry out a huge amount of advertising, financial education and so on. That opportunity would be lost, and simple administrative chaos might ensue, besides the fact that the Minister would not be in her Department.
All I am trying to do is ensure that the policy succeeds; I merely suggest that it be delayed until the autumn. However, the Minister has turned down that offer, and I suppose that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We will see whether everything will be up and running, as she says it will, on time, on budget and without the problems that some of us fear. I hope that she is right. I am not going to press the matter to a Division, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 27 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 28 to 31 ordered to stand part of the Bill.