Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

I shall try to be brief so that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) can get in. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who leads for the Labour party, said that there had been more than 20 Divisions during deliberations on the Bill, but I think that only two principles have been at stake. The first is deficit reduction, and that has been dealt with comprehensively by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) and the Minister. The second is a matter of dogma, to use the right hon. Gentleman’s word, and that is what I want to talk about.

What is the role of the state in ensuring that people can make a journey out of the poverty into which they were born into more successful adult lives? The Opposition say that it is to give out dollops of free money, which will somehow transform people’s life circumstances even if that free money will not be available until they are 18, which might be a decade away for some. It has been the contention of my party since the run-up to the election, and it is now the contention of the coalition Government, that the role of the state is to enable people, for themselves, to achieve while they are at school and then have successful careers in their adult lives, thereby generating surplus funds. That will contribute to the culture of saving far more effectively than any Government incentive. The biggest barrier to someone saving is having an income that enables them to save. The biggest barrier to someone having an income that enables them to save is lack of educational achievement and inability to find a job that transforms their long-term work prospects.

The comprehensive spending review is a package of measures, the main concentration of which is the reduction of expenditure over four years, but that is a net reduction and there are increases within it as well. One of those increases is one of the four main pledges that my party made during the election: the funding of the pupil premium. It is to be funded, as we laid out in the run-up to the election, specifically by the abolition of the child trust fund, which we opposed when the previous Government introduced it and opposed during the general election. That pledge has been carried forward into the coalition agreement.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

It is amazing to listen to the hon. Gentleman: the people of Bristol West voted for a Liberal and ended up with a Tory. Does he not recognise that there is no extra money in the pupil premium, that the Budget was about choices and that the choice that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives made is to hammer families, children and parents right across the country?