Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (Second sitting)

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Maria Caulfield]

Yes, on the lifetime ISA.

Ed Boyd: We have not done the research on the ISA, so we do not have a view. I can probably only help with the Help to Save side of things.

Joseph Surtees: On that point, I would say—and this is applicable to both—that a lot of the behavioural research in this area talks about a process called hyperbolic discounting, which is to do with the fact that the further away something is, the less appealing it will be. So, any mechanisms we can have in any of these products that allow people to access them before two years, in the case of Help to Save, or before much further in the future, in terms of the LISA, will appeal and widen the eligibility a lot more.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Q Some of the evidence we have taken this morning has already been more about long-term savings. In the evidence you presented just now, you emphasised the issue of accessibility and the need for people to be able to access their savings quickly to deal with external shocks. What kind of products do you think would be beneficial for people on low and average incomes for longer-term saving?

Ed Boyd: On the flexibility point in terms of accessibility of savings, there is a question. We produced a short paper on Help to Save off the back of a round table of experts in this area. One of the questions that kept coming up was whether there should be some friction for people taking out the money. For example, if someone starts to save for two years with the best intentions to make sure they get their Government bonus, but has one day of giving up on that plan, it would completely undermine it and they would not get the Government bonus. Potential frictions can be put in such as a 24-hour delay in taking out the money. I think that would be completely reasonable.

Where appropriate, someone could name a third party—a family member, husband, wife, carer or whoever—and when they say, “I want to bring it down in 24 hours”, that person is texted to make sure that there is enough friction to ensure that when the money is drawn down as a rainy-day fund, it is used for rainy-day activities and things that they really need the money for, rather than just for general expenditure. This would encourage people to save and make sure the money is used to help stop them getting into problem debt.

Joseph Surtees: I think there are two interesting points here, one of which is on Help to Save. There is a system in the UK that has proved very good at encouraging low-income people to save over a long period, and that is pensions auto-enrolment. So far, the opt-out rate for that is far lower than anticipated. It is only 10% when it was anticipated to be a quarter. People who are enrolled and have not opted out are those just above the enrolment limits.

That sort of approach is incredibly useful in this area, particularly for low-income people. When you look at products such as Help to Save, such as LISA, perhaps, if you can look at how to incorporate an auto-enrolment element into that—with Help to Save, you can in particular do it through the universal credit system. Universal credit has personal budgeting support which helps you to do that. Those sorts of little behavioural incentives will help to make it appeal and work better for these lower-income individuals.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Q I am conscious that half of UK adults have less than £500 set aside for emergencies. Do you believe that the financial services market has done enough to attract and incentivise savers who are perhaps struggling with income? Do you think that the Help to Save initiative will help to plug that gap?

Joseph Surtees: In answer to the first question, I do not think the financial services sector has done enough to attract these customers and offer them a service. I will give two examples.

You may have heard of a product called prize-linked savings, which has proved to be incredibly successful in the United States. I can send you some information later, if that would be useful. It is incredibly successful at appealing to low-income families. For many years, people have talked about introducing such a system into the UK—a sort of slightly better premium bond offered via commercial providers. This was introduced in the UK by a bank, but only for people who already had £5,000 saved. To me that says that they were not really thinking about lower-income consumers.

The second example is Help to Save itself. One of the suggestions was that it would be offered by commercial high-street providers. Without giving anything away, my understanding is that most commercial providers displayed absolutely no interest in offering this product, but did display interest in taking on these customers once they had £2,000 saved at the end of two years.

Ed Boyd: There is a big problem here, which is that people are getting stuck in problem debt. It is a growing problem. I will check my stats on this—30 million people in the UK lack savings to keep up with essential bills for just one month if their income dropped by a quarter. Within the confines of that, rather than saying, “Do I think it is the financial services’ fault that we have not done enough, or the Government’s, or someone else’s?”, there is a real opportunity with products such as Help to Save for everyone to pull together and do what they need to do to help solve the problem together.

There is an opportunity for credit unions and community development financial institutions to play a big role, as well as mainstream financial institutions, not just in helping people to save but in helping to ensure that they are financially included. You have wider debates around issues such as the poverty premium—that is, the fact that people who have insecure incomes end up paying far more because they cannot do direct debits.

I do not think it is as simple as saying, “It’s just the financial services sector that needs to deal with this and help more.” I think there is a contribution needed from Government, from the private sector and from the voluntary sector as well to work together to help increase people’s ability to budget, to increase people’s incentives and ability to save and to ensure that people are financially included as they go on that journey.

Joseph Surtees: On that point, I always think about the famous Morecambe and Wise sketch: all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order. Actually, out there you have lots of the products and approaches such as Help to Save, LISA and auto-enrolment and there are banks—and especially credit unions—that do very innovative things in these areas, but I think it is important to bring these things together so that people have access at the time they need it and can see the products laid out in front of them and make the right choices.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Rutley]

Q As you think about this product, you realise that the inertia out there in the financial services market is sometimes used by financial services companies in an unhelpful way. Clearly, this is an opportunity to help change people’s behaviours for the better. With your own operation, how would you seek to differentiate this product and get behind it to have the best possible success with your potential customers?

Calum Bennie: I think the key thing here is to make sure that people have enough savings before they commit to a LISA. Obviously, if they are investing in an ISA in general, there is always a risk that they could be disadvantaged if they take their money out in the early years. Even a stocks and shares ISA is very much a longer-term investment. You are talking about people being advised to put their money in a stocks and shares ISA for at least, say, seven years, and ideally 10 or more, but at least they are not going to be penalised with 25% coming off.

Any marketing that we would do on the LISA, and I have to clarify that the LISA would not necessarily be a focus of our marketing—our focus would be on our core products, which are our investment ISAs, as the LISA would not be for everyone—would certainly ask people to make sure that they have enough in their ISA to meet their general savings requirements, and any emergency fund requirements too.

[Dr Whiteford]

Q Good afternoon. One of the key issues we are grappling with today is the potential for the lifetime ISA to derail or undermine auto-enrolment. I have been listening very carefully to your evidence. Am I right to infer that you see the LISA as a viable alternative to pensions, rather than a complement to pensions, for some low to modest income people?

Calum Bennie: Can I just clarify what you are trying to find out from me here? Are you asking whether we would be promoting having a LISA over and above a pension?

[Dr Whiteford]

Not really. I am asking whether I am hearing you right when you promote the lifetime ISA to people as a product instead of a pension.

Calum Bennie: For those who do not want to go into a pension, it is there and it is complementary. We would certainly not want to take away from pensions. As they stand in the current framework, pensions are right. Auto-enrolment is right and is working for so many people; it is a success and has been more successful than the many detractors perhaps thought it would be. We would certainly not want to denigrate that at all. What we are saying is that there are some people who are just not attracted to pensions. They do not want to be forced into pensions and the LISA represents an alternative for them.

[Dr Whiteford]

Q Thanks, that is a helpful clarification. I also wanted to come back to something you said earlier about self-employed people. We took evidence earlier today that around two thirds of self-employed people would not actually qualify for a lifetime ISA. I just wondered whether Scottish Friendly had done alternative modelling or had an alternative assessment of the market.

Calum Bennie: No, we have not.

[Melanie Onn]

Q I will follow up along the lines of what the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan asked. Earlier we heard evidence from the Tax Incentivised Savings Association and the Association of British Insurers and their view was very much that a LISA would be complementary to a pension, not in isolation from a pension. Can you clarify your view that people may not actually have a pension and may exclusively go for a LISA? Do you think that will be a secure route for them, in terms of planning for their long-term older age?

Calum Bennie: In essence, yes. The whole traditional world of retirement is changing and a range of products for people to put money aside for their later years makes total sense. We have done research. With the many customers we have who are saving in ISAs and in other savings plans, when we do the research to find out what they are saving for—financial services companies traditionally market for the holiday of a lifetime, a car, or a home improvement and things like that—our research shows that people are actually saving for retirement. They may have a pension, but they are also saving independently in an investment plan. You cannot just force people to save for their later years in pensions; they are saving in all sorts of vehicles for their later years.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

This will have to be the last question.

[Dr Whiteford]

Q I want to come back to the potential gender differential impacts of the policy and of the LISA in particular, because generally how we ensure that women are able to benefit from public policy decisions is critical. You said that the Women’s Budget Group had concerns that not many women would be able to benefit from it. We also know that, in later life, women are far more likely to be on means-tested benefits because they have smaller pension pots or do not have an occupational pension at all. Has the Women’s Budget Group crunched numbers on that or modelled that in any consistent way?

Jonquil Lowe: No, I do not think we have the detailed number crunching that you are after. It would be a really interesting thing to do, but it is always difficult to have these discussions because you are talking about different cohorts of people. The women who are currently retired and on low pensions did not experience the same set of circumstances as women today. Certainly, the state pension system now has much better protection for people who are caring, which is unlike the private pension system—

[The Chair]

Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions and, indeed, for the sitting. I thank our witnesses on behalf of the Committee for their evidence.