Clause 27 - Commencement
Child Trust Funds Bill
2:30 pm
Mr David Laws (Yeovil, Liberal Democrat)
Thank you, Mr. Amess, and good afternoon to you on this final lap of proceedings in Committee. We had a very interesting debate on new clauses 5 and 13, and the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) explored in new clause 13 the extent to which the Bill would succeed in narrowing the wealth inequalities in society. I had hoped for a while, as the Minister had, that the thrust of his comments might mean that he was changing his mind on the Conservative party's support for this Bill. After all, the Conservative party has changed its line on tuition fees during the past couple of days, and I had hoped that what the hon. Gentleman said was a signal that he had been persuaded by some of the more sceptical members of his Treasury team that a more robust position on the Bill would be justified, but, alas, the hon. Gentleman pointed out that he does not have
a problem with widening inequalities in society, even though dealing with that may be one of the supposed underlying objectives of the Bill.
I shall not press new clause 5 to a Division. I think that we have succeeded in exposing the bankruptcy of the Government's thinking in this area, not least that the Bill is presented as one designed to improve and increase the amount of savings in society. It is supposed to be evidence of that policy, but there is no evidence that additional saving will be encouraged as a consequence of the establishment of the child trust funds, and we note that the initial moneys paid into the child trust funds account will have to be borrowed by the Chancellor from the international financial markets, which raises the question of whether it is in the long-term interests of the country. We have exposed those issues during the debate, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.