Clause 29 — Interpretation

Part of Child Trust Funds Bill – in the House of Commons at 6:18 pm on 3 February 2004.

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Photo of Mr Hilton Dawson Mr Hilton Dawson Labour, Lancaster and Wyre 6:18, 3 February 2004

I have never before served on a Standing Committee that has considered a Treasury Bill and, frankly, it is an experience that I would have avoided before now. We have talked a lot about financial education. I am one of those people who tends to avoid banks, building societies, financial institutions, regulations and all those worrying things, but I have thoroughly enjoyed serving on the Committee, partly because of the Front-Bench spokesmen and my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, who have occasionally characterised themselves, and been characterised, as the young, thrusting generation of the House. We have been talking about a Bill whose effects we will only see over a generation and the generations beyond that. By the time that the first trust funds come to fruition, I can confidently predict that my hon. Friend will have attained great eminence in government, and I am sure that the other extremely able. Members will have enjoyed themselves making small achievements amid the general wastes of Opposition for many years to come.

It is important to recognise that the consideration of the Bill has been helpful and constructive, because underlying the whole debate has been the recognition that its proposals have enormously exciting potential. We heard about the grand old Tory values of savings, self-reliance and all the rest of it, but the Bill is new Labour. It is a universal provision that addresses the most serious issues in our society: child poverty, the urgent and desperate need for regeneration and the absolute need to ensure that every child in our society has real opportunities to succeed and make the best of what they have. It takes an entrepreneurial attitude towards the future and gives young people the chance to own a substantial asset. It will create an imaginative process and implement a grand proposal that will tackle poverty and help people to address their own circumstances and future in a way that neither this country nor any other country in the world has ever seen before.

I am sad, in a way, that we have not reached the conclusion that I wanted on a matter about which I feel strongly—children in care. However, I am encouraged by the idea that over the next 16 years—the next generation—people who work with children, and children themselves, will have the opportunity to determine the way in which the development of child trust funds may be adapted, adopted and improved to support children's lives in ways that we have perhaps not been able to foresee readily during the Bill's parliamentary stages.

Some grand ideas were expressed in Committee by not only the Government, but the Opposition. Ideas on working with and supporting children with disabilities and the way in which trust funds could be adapted to meet their needs in a new future of social care are important and point the way forward. A good Committee considered a good Bill that implements a truly inspirational idea and gives us something for the future of which we can all be proud.