Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to follow the government of Scotland in providing matched funding for incentivised learning of life skills for young people in care through the Share Foundation’s Stepladder PLUS programme.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

​​We want to ensure that children leaving care have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong loving relationships and are engaged in education, employment and training.

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​We recognise the importance of financial skills, such as that provided through the Stepladder Plus programme, in achieving this aim. The department currently supports the use of this programme through its contract, for the provision of Junior ISA savings accounts to children in care, with The Share Foundation. We do not have any plans to provide match funding at this time.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of unclaimed adult-owned HMRC-allocated child trust funds where the beneficiaries are unaware of their existence and HMRC has access to all the account providers.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

The information received from Child Trust Fund (CTF) providers does not identify whether an account was initially opened by HMRC.

The Government is committed to reuniting all young adults with their CTFs. HMRC works with CTF providers, industry representatives, and others to enable account owners to be aware of and trace their accounts. Regular HMRC press releases and messages are supplemented by targeted activities likely to appeal to the demographic, with particular emphasis on young people from low income households.

HMRC also provides a free tracing tool on Gov.uk to help people find their CTF provider (www.gov.uk/child-trust-funds/find-a-child-trust-fund) and has experienced a significant increase in its use this year.