Clause 9
6:30 pm
Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 37, in clause 9, page 5, line 8, at end insert—
‘(d) specify that a statement may be sent electronically.’.
The intention of the amendment was touched on by the Economic Secretary in his previous answer. I tabled it to highlight that the Bill and the attached regulations do not provide account providers the option to provide statements in electronic form. That is not to say that that should be the only form in which they could provide the statement. That could be done only with the consent of the account holder because not everybody has access to e-mail or to online banking.
The intention of the Bill is not only to encourage saving and make it more accessible, but to keep the costs down in the provision of the accounts. Allowing electronic statements would fit those principles. The findings of the pilots tell us that, generally, people were happy with the information that they received in their statements. However, there was an issue with timings. It was felt that statements tended to be a few months behind when they arrived. When people were making their final deposits, they were receiving statements for deposits made a month or two earlier.
The amendment would ensure that account holders were given up-to-date information about their account and felt some ownership of it to generate that sense of saving. It would also reduce the costs to the account providers who told us in the evidence sessions that their overheads in providing these accounts are extremely high compared with other similar accounts. That is a clear objective of the amendment. I hope that the Economic Secretary will take it into account when considering what is best for the provision of these accounts and the people they are meant to assist.