Mark Hoban (Shadow Minister, Treasury; Fareham, Conservative)

I have a quick question about the clause. My thinking behind this is that the Minister is seeking to ensure that saving gateway accounts can be sharia-compliant. Does he share my understanding that if the requirement is to pay interest on these accounts, they would not be sharia-compliant?

Ian Pearson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Economic and Business), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Dudley South, Labour)

Certainly, the purpose of the clause is to ensure that saving gateway accounts could be sharia compliant. The hon. Gentleman is right; my understanding of sharia law is that if interest were paid on saving gateway accounts, they probably would not be sharia compliant. That is something that potential providers of sharia-compliant saving gateway accounts could certainly consider. He makes a relevant point.

Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet, Labour)

My understanding is that the sharia-compliant account can still pay a bonus at the end in exactly the same way that the Government intend. If that bonus at the end happened to be the same as the amount of interest earned, then, as it were, my hon. Friend the Minister might say “tomato” and I might say “to-may-to”.

Ian Pearson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Economic and Business), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Dudley South, Labour)

Indeed. I am not a sharia theologian. [Laughter.] That is abundantly obvious to the Committee. Sharia compliance is a judgment to be made by a theologian. It would be up to those theologians to decide whether the accounts were sharia compliant. It is too early to say whether or not account providers will offer sharia-compliant accounts. Ultimately, that is a commercial decision for them to make and it would be up to the sharia theologians to decide whether a bonus is compliant with sharia law or not.