Clause 1
10:30 am
Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet, Labour)
I welcome you, Mr. Bercow, to the Committee and look forward to serving under your chairmanship.
I have a quick question along the same lines as that asked by the hon. Member for Taunton, who tabled these amendments. Given our experience of the occasional inefficiencies of HMRC, I wonder how many of our constituents will not get their notice of eligibility when required, and how many will end up in their MP’s office, asking for help to get them. I would like assurance from my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary that notices will be issued as soon as someone becomes eligible, that some mechanism will be put in place to ensure that they are routinely issued and that we can count on everyone eligible having a notice as soon as they are entitled to go to the relevant account provider and open one of the savings accounts. It seems to me that we might be adding possible inefficiency to the process by doing things in this way. I should like to hear his comments.