Savings (Government Contributions) Bill
Debate between Jane Ellison and Ian BlackfordMonday 12th December 2016
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Savings (Government Contributions) Act 2017 View all Savings (Government Contributions) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 12 December 2016 - (12 Dec 2016)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
This has been a wide-ranging debate, albeit with a relatively small number of speakers. Many of the arguments today were given a good airing during our Bill Committee discussions. I will try to address the key points raised by hon. Members, and will also set out why we think the Government amendments are necessary.
First, however, I want to touch on a point of policy that is of some relevance to the debate: a change to charges in the first year. We are making a small change to charges on early withdrawals from the lifetime ISA in its first year of operation, for the benefit of consumers. Although these rules will be set out in regulations, so do not affect the substance of the Bill before the House today, as a courtesy I thought some hon. Members would be interested, given the points raised in oral evidence to the Bill Committee.
The 25% Government charge on unauthorised withdrawals from the lifetime ISA recoups the Government bonus and applies a small additional charge. This is fair as it reflects the long-term nature of the product and ensures that individuals save into it for the intended purposes, protecting Government funds and taxpayers’ money. However, in 2017-18 only, the bonus will not be paid monthly, as it will be from April 2018 on, but will be paid as an annual bonus at year-end. This could create a difficult case where people face a 25% Government charge up to 12 months before they receive the bonus. We have listened to representations on this point, and so, to improve the product for consumers, I can confirm that there will be no Government charges in 2017-18.
If people want to withdraw from their lifetime ISA in 2017-18, they must close their account, and there will be no Government charge to do so. No bonuses will be paid on such closed accounts.
An individual who has closed their account will be able to open another lifetime ISA in 2017-18 and contribute up to £4,000 into it, if they wish to. From April 2018 the Government bonus will be paid monthly. This means that the 25% Government charge on withdrawals other than for a first-time house purchase, in the event of terminal illness or when the individual is over 60 will apply as per the overarching policy intention.
Government amendment 3 is about data sharing, and I wrote on this issue to the hon. Members for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) and copied in the rest of the Bill Committee. We have heard that the lifetime ISA will provide an eligible first-time buyer with a new choice in saving for their first home, in addition to the existing help to buy ISA scheme. Both schemes provide that generous Government bonus of 25% that can be put towards a first home.
As we set out when we first announced the lifetime ISA, we intend that individuals will be able to save into both a Help to Buy ISA and a lifetime ISA, but they will only be able to use the bonus from one of the schemes when they buy their first home. Amendment 3 introduces a new paragraph to schedule 1 to allow HMRC and the administrator of the Help to Buy ISA to share information about bonus payments and charge-free withdrawals so that those rules can be policed. It also provides appropriate safeguards and sanctions in relation to the use of account holders’ information, including a criminal offence for unlawful disclosure of that information, in line with HMRC’s established duty of taxpayer confidentiality. The amendment is straightforward and will ensure that the scheme rules on Government bonuses can be effectively administered. I hope that the House will accept it.
Government amendments 4 and 5 concern residency conditions for Help to Save. That is a targeted scheme, as we have heard, that will support lower-income savers by providing a generous Government bonus on their savings. It is only right that that Government bonus should be available for savings made while an account holder is in the UK or has an appropriate connection with the UK, such as Crown servants serving overseas. The Bill already provides that, as well as meeting conditions in relation to working tax credit or universal credit, an individual must be in the UK to open an account. However, it is currently silent on the rules that apply where an account holder leaves the UK during the four-year lifetime of an account.
The amendments address that situation by allowing regulations to provide that the monthly payment limit for Help to Save can be set at nil in certain cases. We intend to use that power to provide that an individual cannot make payments to an account, and cannot thereby earn additional Government bonus, when they are not in the UK or do not have the appropriate connection to the UK. That will be supported by a requirement to notify the account provider if an account holder’s circumstances change and they will be absent from the UK. That approach broadly mirrors the arrangements currently in place for ISA accounts. The amendments also provide for a penalty where there is a failure to notify the account provider of such a change. However, that penalty will not apply where there is a reasonable excuse for the failure, and any person who receives a penalty will have the right to appeal. The House will have the opportunity to consider regulations dealing with eligibility for an account before the launch of the scheme.
These amendments allow an effective targeting of the generous Help to Save bonus, so that it can be earned only on savings made by individuals in the UK, or with an appropriate connection. On that basis, I hope that the House will accept them.
I will now respond to the non-Government amendments and new clauses. Again, we debated most of these issues at length in Committee. I will try not to recap all the arguments and to summarise the main ones.
New clause 3 and new clause 7 both concern advice for people opening either type of account. We have heard concerns that people may not get all the advice they need. I have been clear that the regulation of providers is the role of the independent Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates ISA providers and will likewise set the framework for the Lifetime ISA. It is consulting on its approach at the moment. On 16 November, it set out its suggested approach.
The Government of course want to ensure that people have the information that they need to make important financial decisions. We will provide clear information on gov.uk as well as work with the Money Advice Service and its successor to ensure that they make appropriate and impartial information available. The risk of mandating that people receive independent advice is that it makes investing in these products prohibitively expensive for many people. In Committee, we talked about the cost associated with mandating financial advice of that nature. Therefore, although I understand the sentiment behind those new clauses, I urge hon. Members not to press them and instead look at what the FCA has recommended in its initial suggestions to us.
Jane Ellison
I will, although the hon. Gentleman spoke for 20 minutes on this subject. I will take a brief intervention.
Ian Blackford
Speaking for 20 minutes when consumers are exposed to risk is not unreasonable. Can the Minister tell me which workers who have access to auto-enrolment will be better off under a LISA than they would under a pension?
Jane Ellison
I accept entirely, and it is evident from the hon. Gentleman’s speech, that he objects in principle to the lifetime ISA, but the matter before the House is whether we legislate for it, and the new clause I am addressing at the moment concerns financial advice. I have given examples of where the Government will be steering people towards advice. We are as keen as anyone that people have access to advice, but I urge him to look at the FCA consultation and what it has said, because it is the FCA’s job to steer us in that regard.
Jane Ellison
I am just saying that nothing in the Bill precludes that from happening now, so the amendment is unnecessary. We are in constructive discussions with the credit unions. They are not precluded from being part of a multiple provider model in future. I have laid out that, throughout the consultation, we identified that that was not a suitable model for the starting point. However, I honestly think that we are essentially coming at this from the same point of view. I hope that, in the light of what I have said, hon. Members will not press the amendment. As I say, we will continue to have those constructive discussions.
Amendment 7 seeks to pay the bonus every six months, rather than at the two and four-year mark of the Help to Save product. We believe that paying the bonus at two years and at account maturity strikes the right balance between giving people enough time to build up their savings and develop a savings habit and allowing them to access the bonus within an appropriate timescale. That is supported by evidence from similar savings schemes. Some Members will be aware that the savings gateway pilots showed that the optimal period for the saving habit to be embedded is two years.
I emphasise that people will still have full access to their savings with Help to Save, so even if they are able to save for only six months, they will still be entitled to receive a bonus at the two-year point or at maturity. I hope that that reassures hon. Members that we have looked carefully at the issue. I accept that it is, to an extent, a judgment call, but evidence from the savings gateway pilots, as well as from other peer-reviewed research, shows that the optimal time for the saving habit to be embedded is about 19 to 24 months. We think that we have struck the right balance, so I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
Amendments 8 to 11 centre on the contribution limits. Not many Members spoke specifically about the issue and we explored it well in Committee. It is about being able to contribute a two-monthly average of £50. Our consultation specifically addressed the question of whether individuals should be able to pay in more than the £50 limit in certain circumstances. Respondents were very clear that that would add complexity to the scheme, both for savers and for account providers. It is worth noting that the Office for Budget Responsibility-certified forecast suggests that people will deposit £27.50 into their accounts each month on average. The £50 monthly limit is adequate, so I hope that the amendments will not be pressed.
Amendment 12 centres on eligibility for under-25s. The issue was explored in Committee and it has been touched on briefly today by the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber. Our intention is to passport people into eligibility for Help to Save from working tax credit and universal credit. That is a well-established way of targeting people on lower incomes, and we think that it is the most simple and effective method for determining eligibility. Importantly, it removes the need for people either to complete a further means test to prove that they are eligible for an account or to contact the Government, both of which deter people from opening accounts. It also avoids additional costs associated with developing a new and complex eligibility checking system.
The hon. Gentleman also touched on amendment 13, which seeks to exempt bonuses from bankruptcy proceedings. Our approach is consistent with what we have done elsewhere. In the benefits system, for example, deductions are sometimes made to claims to repay debts. We think that, in reality, any accrued bonus represents an asset to the account holder and should be treated as such during any insolvency proceedings. Again, I urge Members not press the amendment.
The hon. Member for Harrow West began by speaking to new clause 1, which focuses on save-as-you-earn and the payroll reduction, which is also the subject of amendment 14. Both proposed amendments seek to introduce rules to allow people to deduct automatically amounts from their salary into a Help to Save account. In fact, amendment 14 goes further by proposing the introduction of auto-enrolment for Help to Save, allowing employers or benefit-paying bodies to divert money from employees’ pay into a Help to Save account, unless they opt out.
As I said in Committee, we want the decision to save into a Help to Save account to be an active choice made by eligible individuals at a time that is right for them. For many, that will mean saving flexibly, putting aside what they can afford each month, rather than committing to having a fixed amount deducted each month from their salary. There is nothing in the Bill to stop an employer offering payroll deduction for Help to Save to their employees, but we do not intend to make it a statutory requirement for employers to offer payroll deduction for Help to Save. Automatic enrolment into workplace pensions must remain the priority for employers.
New clauses 2, 4, 5 and 6 seek to place a duty on the Government to review or publish analysis on certain aspects of the policies. In all cases we have already conducted an impact assessment, published alongside the Bill. At the time of the autumn statement, we published a cumulative distribution analysis of all the policies implemented during the 2015-20 Parliament, including of the lifetime ISA and Help to Save. We believe that it is important to look at the cumulative impact of tax and spending decisions, rather than the impact of individual measures in isolation. The distributional analysis that the Government have published since 2010 has always taken that cumulative, rather than measure-by-measure, approach.
As with all Government policies, we will, of course, keep the lifetime ISA under review to ensure that it is meeting its objectives. Indeed, we already regularly publish a wide range of detail about the take-up of Government-supported savings accounts such as ISAs. We intend to take a similar approach to the lifetime ISA, so we have already done a lot in that regard.
We discussed the interaction with the housing market in Committee, as the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) has said. In essence, any impact that the lifetime ISA has on the housing market is likely to be very difficult to detect among other factors. As was said in Committee, the accusations that this product benefits only the wealthy do not bear scrutiny, given that the Help to Buy ISA has been used to buy homes worth on average £167,250, which is well under the property price cap. The accusations are not fair.
The interaction with automatic enrolment dominated the contribution of the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber. We covered the issue in detail in Committee, and I once again stress the Government’s absolute commitment to automatic enrolment. It is wrong to say that we are seeking to derail it. The lifetime ISA—the Treasury is clear on this—is designed to be a complement to automatic enrolment and workplace pensions, not a replacement. Our costings do not assume that people will opt out of their workplace pension in order to pay into a lifetime ISA. Encouragingly, the figures show that the opt-out rate is very low so far. Taking all those things together, we do not think that the proposed new clauses are necessary, so I urge hon. Members not to press them.
Amendments 15 to 22 would effectively cancel the lifetime ISA from the Bill. It is evident from my comments so far that I have no intention of accepting the amendments. It is clear that we have a disagreement in principle. The hon. Gentleman’s accusations against the measure bordered on hyperbole. He said that he is prepared to look at any reasonable proposal that helps people to save, but we know from the consultations on the complex subject of saving for the future that this is a product that will help many people save. It is a direct response to the comments made in response to a public consultation about the complexity of savings options.
Jane Ellison
No. We have had a good debate, both in Committee and here, and I am going to press on. I have to date taken slightly less time than the hon. Gentleman—
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister is clearly not giving way. It is apparent to everybody else in the Chamber and I am sure that it is now apparent to the hon. Gentleman.
Jane Ellison
Amendments 15 to 22 seek to cancel half the Bill—I am not going to accept them. I refer the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber to the FCA’s consultation; I do not think that it would recognise his comments, and neither do I.
Amendment 1 would change the normal maturity period for Help to Save accounts from 48 to 24 months. In practice, people would be able to save into a Help to Save account for only two years rather than four. We designed the scheme so that people can save into a Help to Save account and get a Government bonus after two years, and then continue to save and receive a further bonus when the account matures after four years. We have done that because we want the target group to be able to save as regularly as other people and they may take longer to save towards that vital rainy day fund. It also provides an incentive for people to continue saving beyond two years, which fits with our objective to encourage people to develop a long-term saving habit. I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
Finally, amendment 6 would delay commencement until April 2019, when automatic enrolment into workplace pensions will be fully rolled out. We have been very clear that we do not expect lifetime ISAs to drive opt-outs from pension saving. There is, therefore, no reason to delay. In fact, such a delay would disadvantage those who wish to open a lifetime ISA and who have been preparing for a 2017 launch. The hon. Gentleman completely disregarded the fact that self-employed people do not have the option of access to a workplace pension scheme. That came out in evidence to the Bill Committee. There was not a word about the self-employed.
Jane Ellison
No, I will not.
The proposal would also delay Help to Save for a year, disadvantaging the savers on low incomes who will benefit from the scheme. Like many hon. Members, I am passionate about the Help to Save scheme and want to see it go ahead as planned. I intend to work with all who have been mentioned—the credit unions, many financial inclusion charities, and the Churches—to ensure that we exceed the take-up target for Help to Save. I will be delighted if we vastly exceed the target, and that is my intention.
Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (Fifth sitting)
Debate between Jane Ellison and Ian Blackford(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 6, page 3, leave out lines 36 to 39 and insert—
‘(2) This Act comes into force on the day after the establishment of an Independent Pensions and Savings Commission.’
This amendment would delay the commencement of the products until an independent pensions and savings commission is established.
The amendment would delay the commencement of the products until an independent pensions and savings commission was established. The Scottish National party has long called for the establishment of an independent pensions and savings commission to look at the crisis in saving for retirement. Following the success of the Turner commission, we should recognise that we need a standing commission to help us steer a long-term, sustainable path for pensions and savings. The Cridland commission is looking at the state retirement and pensionable age, which we welcome, but all such matters should be looked at holistically.
A commission of experts, free from political influence, could focus on all aspects of pensions and savings, with a view to delivering a universal pensions and savings system that enables dignity in retirement. Such a commission is needed to minimise politically motivated changes to pensions and savings, with the aim of eliminating complexity and perverse incentives. We have voiced our legitimate concerns that the Bill risks undermining pension savings and redirecting consumers to products that will not confer the greater level of benefits that pension savings offer. We need to pause and consider what we are seeking to achieve with pensions and other savings products, while making sure that we build confidence in pension savings in particular.
Malcolm McLean of Barnett Waddingham, the pensions consultant, who is a former head of the Pensions Advisory Service, said:
“Much of pension policy seems to be dictated by political expediency rather than the needs of consumers… Political time horizons are too short. Pension policy is controlled by a government whose agenda is short-term, yet pensions are a long-term issue.”
Chris Noon, a partner at the consultancy Hymans Robertson, also commented on the need to free pensions from the political system, saying:
“Political temptation to raid pensions in hard times is too great. We need less meddling and more long-term thinking. We need to get the best brains together to work out how we deal with longer term, intergenerational issues.”
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
Good morning to you, Mr Wilson, and to the rest of the Committee.
As we have just heard, the amendment concerns the date from which the Bill will come into force as an Act. The hon. Gentleman has outlined his reasons for wanting a delay. The amendment would provide that the Act will not come into force until the day after the establishment of the independent pensions and savings commission he has just described.
Over the course of our deliberations in Committee, we have discussed why the schemes in the Bill are really positive steps for savers, so I will not go through those arguments at length again. The fundamental point is that we want both the lifetime individual savings account and Help to Save to become available to people as soon as possible. A delay would not be fair to the people who could have benefited from them. For example, delaying the lifetime ISA for a year would mean that people would miss out on the chance to save up to £4,000 into such an ISA and get a bonus of up to £1,000.
Ian Blackford
Will the Minister confirm that anyone who has the opportunity to enrol in an auto-enrolment pension is going to be better off doing that than investing in an ISA? That is one of the issues we are trying to determine with the amendment.
Jane Ellison
To some extent, we are returning to a debate we had during last week’s proceedings. The products in the Bill are not designed to be an alternative to pensions. The Government could not have been clearer in expressing our strong support for auto-enrolment and pensions saving more generally. Help to Save is very much a product directed at people for whom there is very little choice available in the savings products that are currently on the market.
Ian Blackford
I apologise for coming back to this, but it is critical. My real worry is that there is nothing that will prevent someone from taking out a LISA and perhaps not taking out an automatic enrolment pension, when the latter would be best for their financial interests. My real concern with the LISA and its consequences is that we will end up with savers putting money into products that are, in this case, not fit for purpose.
Jane Ellison
That takes us back to territory we have covered. I do not doubt the hon. Gentleman’s sincerity in putting forward his concerns, which he has expressed during debates on other amendments, but as I say, the Government are completely committed to auto-enrolment. We want to have a robust, functioning pension system, but there is also a need for complementary products.
Jane Ellison
Yes, I do. That is exactly right. I remind the Committee of the independent Financial Conduct Authority’s remit in this regard. Its role is to regulate the providers of policies to ensure, as is its ordinary remit, that they are transparent to consumers about the products that they are offering and that those products are sold with suitable safeguards in place. That is in addition to the Government publishing factual information about the lifetime ISA on gov.uk and working with the Money Advice Service and its successor to ensure that appropriate information is available. I reiterate that if we want individuals to be well informed, those are the mechanisms by which an individual, with their individual circumstances, will be informed. I genuinely do not think that a commission is the way to look at advising each individual, because by its very nature, it cannot look at each person’s affairs, life and aspirations and say what is right for them. We need to give people individual advice.
Ian Blackford
I am very grateful to the Minister; she is being generous with her time. The whole point about a pensions and savings commission is not to look at each individual and give advice, but to ensure that we bring Government policy together and look holistically at all the issues affecting pensions and savings, deal with the fact that we have had so many gimmicks like these and get something that is right for the long term for those who wish to save for their pensions.
Jane Ellison
I do not accept that these are gimmicks. I do not think the hon. Gentleman means what he said about Help to Save. If we can help thousands of families to save money for a rainy day and stave off disaster, to which they are all too susceptible at the moment, that would be a very good thing, and all of us on the Committee could take pride in that.
Ian Blackford
To clarify, I am talking about the LISA. I have not made any reference to Help to Save in this regard. I am specifically addressing what I see as the shortcomings of the LISA.
Jane Ellison
Indeed, and we have debated that in previous sittings. The thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s argument is that the Government do not consult and are not reviewing things, and that Governments—I suspect he means Governments of all colours—have tinkered with these things. I do not accept the broad point. We have done consultations on Help to Save and the lifetime ISA came out of an extensive consultation on pension tax relief. It is worth noting that there was no clear consensus from that. It is not as if the truth is out there, and if we just have an enormous commission, we will come to one point of view that everyone agrees with. In this area, there is a lot of debate and contention, and therefore we are trying to find a way through that goes with the grain of human nature and common sense. That is why having the lifetime ISA as a complementary product to auto-enrolment or people’s other pension arrangements makes sense.
I will finish the point about Government reviews, because it is worth getting it on the record. We already hold all savings policy under review, particularly through the Budget process. Our commitment to reviewing policy is also evident in the review of the state pension age, which will be informed by the independent report led by John Cridland, and the upcoming review of automatic enrolment in 2017. The Government are not walking away from the important job of scrutinising how things land in reality, but I am not persuaded that the reasons the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber advanced for a delay are right in the context of these two products and this Bill.
Ian Blackford
Does the Minister accept that the Turner commission was a force for good and for change in pensions and savings in this country? Out of the Turner commission, we effectively got auto-enrolment, about which there was cross-party consensus in the House. That is what we seek to achieve by taking these issues away to a commission. That would create the circumstances in which we could all work together to improve the pensions and savings landscape in this country.
Jane Ellison
Let me try to wind this debate up on a note of consensus. Where we can achieve consensus on important long-term reforms—auto-enrolment is a very good example—it is wise to do so, but we are debating apples and pears here. The debate about what is the right way to go in the pensions and savings landscape over the next several decades is separate from, albeit related to, the Bill and the two products that we want to bring in to augment the available landscape of products for individuals in this country.
Jane Ellison
I totally accept that point. I suspect that some of us on the Committee would put ourselves in that category, casting their mind back over the years. The point is that the regulatory landscape today is very different from what it was; the hon. Member for Luton North made that point in one of our debates last week.
The Government are fully committed to providing advice. The Treasury sponsors the Money Advice Service, which has started to play a greater role in co-ordinating financial education programmes in schools. We have seen a lot more progress on that. We have the 10-year financial capability strategy, led by the Money Advice Service and supported by industry, which aims to improve financial capability across the nation. We see many different bodies going into schools and working with young people. There is always more to do, but I genuinely think that we are looking at a very different landscape from that of some decades ago. While we would never be complacent, that is why we want to take all the measures that I have mentioned to provide advice and information.
We have to find a balance in ensuring that people can access accounts that could greatly benefit them and their family. It is worth reiterating that with Help to Save, people’s money is not locked away. If individuals change their mind or decide the scheme is not for them, they are free to close their account and withdraw their savings, free of charge. I want to end with that reminder. We have designed the product with maximum flexibility in mind for a group of people whose current financial exclusion we should be ashamed of as a nation. We want to do something about that.
Ian Blackford
I am disappointed that the Minister has decided to reject the new clause, because it is about ensuring that those applying for the LISA or Help to Save have appropriate advice, which is important to them. We have talked about ensuring that people are aware of the other choices that they have, particularly auto-enrolment. The new clause is about ensuring that we do not end up in a situation where there could be any dubiety about the potential for mis-selling. This is not about the regulator; it is about ensuring that consumers are given all available information at the point of sale. On that basis, I seek to press the new clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (Third sitting)
Debate between Jane Ellison and Ian Blackford(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
It is a pleasure to be here with you and the Committee, Mr Chope. I thank everybody for their attention at the very good witness sessions on Tuesday, when we heard from some very interesting people who were good enough to give up their time to come and inform our deliberations.
I will say a general word around lifetime ISAs when speaking to clause 1 and will come on to new clause 2. However, I should say first that there is much about the spirit of the new clauses and amendments proposed with which I agree, as I think we all would. When I come to speak on them, it will be to demonstrate that they are unnecessary or would not work as intended. I do understand the spirit in which they are tabled. I also note, as we all have, that there are areas of significant consensus across the Committee, particularly around auto-enrolment, the success it has been and the wish to see it go from strength to strength.
I will come to that in a moment, but I will first introduce the broader product. We believe the lifetime ISA is a positive addition to the savings landscape. That was a view substantiated by a number of the experts we heard from on Tuesday. It will support younger people to save for a first home and to supplement their long-term savings by topping up individual contributions with a generous 25% Government bonus of up to £1,000 a year.
In 2015, the Government held a full consultation on pension tax relief, which is the background to how we came to the lifetime ISA. The outcome was clear: there was at that time no consensus for fundamental reform to the pension tax system. In some ways, some of the comments that we have heard in speeches this morning reflect the fact that there is still a desire among some people for a fundamental redrawing of the landscape, but the reality is that that is a debate for another time and place. We are in Committee to deal with this Bill, but I acknowledge that that other debate is ongoing.
Throughout the course of the consultation, young people indicated that they wanted more ways to save flexibly for the future. At Budget 2016, therefore, the Government announced the introduction of the lifetime ISA, which has been welcomed by insurers, ISA providers and other industry experts, as we heard on Tuesday. Although some people had some concerns, I think it is fair to say that there was a broad degree of welcome from people across the sector. They see the lifetime ISA as a valuable new vehicle to help young people save.
Ian Blackford
Does not the Minister accept that all the generous bonus will do, in effect, is compensate those who have gone into the LISA for the fact that, in contrast to a pension where people are putting pre-tax income in, the money is coming out of post-tax income, so on a zero-sum basis it comes out more or less the same? Anyone going into a pension can expect to get employer contributions, so anyone saving in a pension will be better off. For the life of me, I cannot understand, given the cross-party consensus about supporting and strengthening auto-enrolment, why on earth she wants to muddy the water so that people might be seduced into this product when they should be investing in a pension.
Jane Ellison
This perhaps goes to the nub of the disagreement we have in Committee: the Government do not see it as an either/or. The hon. Gentleman is very much positing the product versus pensions as an either/or, but we have been quite clear that the lifetime ISA is a complement, and we heard that from witnesses. I also think that, while acknowledging the consensus to protect auto-enrolment, and indeed to encourage people to save with the pension products appropriate for them, to jump from that to the assumption that the lifetime ISA is, by its nature, going to undermine everything else is a jump too far. I would reject some of his language. Later, I will come on to some points to support my assertion.
The clause itself sets out the defining characteristic of the lifetime ISA: a Government bonus will be paid by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs where a qualifying addition is made to a lifetime ISA in a relevant period. “Lifetime ISA”, “qualifying addition” and “relevant period” will be defined in regulations, which will also provide that the Government bonus will be 25% of all qualifying additions made to the account. I confirm that those new regulations will be brought to the House for debate ahead of the launch of the new account in April 2017. Further detail on the lifetime ISA is set out in schedule 1.
New clause 1 seeks to place a requirement on the Government to conduct an annual review of whether the lifetime ISA has had any impact on workplace pensions, and in particular automatic enrolment, as we heard from the shadow Minister. The Government are absolutely committed to automatic enrolment, which will help 10 million people to newly save or to save more into pensions by 2018.
The lifetime ISA is designed to be a complement to automatic enrolment and workplace pensions, not a replacement. We are clear about that language, and we will continue to be. The aim of the lifetime ISA is to support younger people to purchase a first home and to supplement their long-term savings, not to choose between the two. The reality is that some of the youngest people who take out this product will be able to take the money out at 60, but that will not be their retirement age. We are talking about people saving for a later phase of their life, perhaps the last phase of their working life, or to do something in their later years that they always wished to do but did not have the chance to do when they were younger.
The Government’s different policies on employer contributions to a pension and a lifetime ISA reflect all that, which goes to the point made in an intervention. Employers have a statutory obligation to contribute towards pensions under automatic enrolment. They also have a direct incentive to do so through relief on national insurance contributions. The cost of that to the Exchequer was £13.8 billion in 2014-15, which is a powerful demonstration of the Government’s commitment to retain strong incentives in the system. Neither is the case with the lifetime ISA.
We have already conducted an impact assessment, published alongside the Bill, and we clearly do not expect that people will opt out of their workplace pension in order to pay into a lifetime ISA instead. The help to buy ISA already provides a 25% bonus to support people to purchase a first home, but the launch of that did not lead to a surge in opt-outs. I accept that it is a slightly different product, with a different timescale. Nevertheless, there is real-world evidence that it did not lead to that.
Ian Blackford
I agree with the Minister about us all being satisfied by the opt-out rate being lower than anticipated. The real challenge will come in the next few years, as rates going into the auto-enrolment scheme increase. That is why it is important we keep the primary focus on auto-enrolment, to ensure that as contribution levels increase, we do not inadvertently see an increase in the opt-out rate, with people perhaps switching to the LISA.
Jane Ellison
I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s broad point. He assumes the worst will happen, whereas I have good evidence to show that that is not a reasonable assumption. I will go on to show that we are keeping these things under constant review across the broad piece of pensions and savings.
The lifetime ISA, like all Government policies, will be kept under review to ensure that it is meeting its objectives. We already publish a wide range of details about the take-up of Government-supported savings accounts such as ISAs, and we intend to take a similar approach with the lifetime ISA. Similarly, national statistics and other information such as the Office for National Statistics wealth and assets survey set out information on the savings held across a range of different household types. It is quite granular information.
As the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber said earlier, we have a legislative commitment to review certain aspects of auto-enrolment in 2017. In addition, we have the discretion to conduct wider review activity. We recognise that broader challenges and questions have been raised by stakeholders in connection with the review—for example, questions of inclusion and adequacy. It is important we look at the scope and the right sequencing of review activity. The Government are currently scoping the review and hope to update further on that by the end of the year. Of course, the debate we are having in this Committee will inform those deliberations. Because of that, we consider publishing an additional review of the scheme’s operation to be unnecessary in terms of its interaction with the product we are discussing in this clause. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Bootle not to press new clause 1.
New clause 2 seeks that the Government provide in regulations that independent financial advice is made available to all customers making an application for a lifetime ISA. I think we all agree with the thrust of the debate on the new clause. We have all seen victims of mis-selling and want to ensure that our constituents go into every financial decision with the best information available. The Government want people to have the information they need to make important financial decisions and we will achieve that by providing clear factual information on gov.uk, as well as working with the Money Advice Service and its successor to ensure they make appropriate and impartial information available.
New clause 2 would require all individuals to take out financial advice before they open a lifetime ISA. I want to demonstrate that that is not practical, however well intentioned it is. Financial advice is relatively expensive. The point has been made that we do not want to disadvantage younger people and basic rate taxpayers who want to take advantage of this product. Our impact assessment and all the work that we have done indicate that the vast majority of people who take up the product will be basic rate taxpayers.
Research carried out by Unbiased shows that the average cost of financial advice for customers is £150 per hour and the average advice process takes around eight hours. That totals £1,200. Even if we assume that that is the upper end of estimates, it is still £200 more than the maximum annual bonus that an individual could receive from the lifetime ISA. That would create a significant barrier to all but the wealthiest individuals opening a lifetime ISA, and I know that that is the opposite of the Opposition’s intent.
Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (Fourth sitting)
Debate between Jane Ellison and Ian Blackford(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I will be brief in supporting the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Bootle. Including credit unions as providers is critical, given the vast number of savers who use community credit unions to build up incomes for later life. Many credit unions set up local pay-in points such as shops or community centres and are increasingly important, given the withdrawal of the banks from many of the communities that credit unions represent. Therefore I wholly support the amendment.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
I echo the comments that have been made about credit unions. I am sure that many of us, on both sides of the Committee, have credit unions in our local area. There is an excellent one in Wandsworth, which I do what I can to support with publicity and signposting for constituents. I certainly place on the record our admiration for the credit union movement. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bootle, said, there will be a meeting. His colleague the hon. Member for Harrow West made a very good speech on Second Reading, and I am glad that that meeting will take place.
This debate is about who provides the Help to Save product. We were clear in our consultation that the options for delivery were to engage a single provider to guarantee nationwide provision, or to open the opportunity to offer the account to a wider range of providers on a voluntary basis. Although we are keen to explore the potential for credit unions to be involved and we of course acknowledge, as I have done, the valuable work that they do in our communities, we believe that they could not guarantee the nationwide provision of accounts that we seek.
Appointing National Savings and Investments as the scheme provider, which we have obviously made public, does involve our funding it for nationwide account provision, but it also means that we can work with a single provider to ensure that accounts are easily accessible to all eligible people, and it removes what could be the significant administrative and compliance costs associated with allowing a range of providers to offer accounts. Those could include costs associated with approving providers, checking for multiple account opening, checking and paying bonus claims from different providers and ensuring that each provider is operating the account correctly.
An option whereby we funded NS&I to provide accounts while we also allowed other providers to offer accounts on a voluntary basis would not provide value for money in this environment. A product such as this operates very much at the value-for-money end of the market. However, I am clear that we should not rule out the option for a range of providers, including credit unions, voluntarily to offer accounts in the future if that would deliver national coverage, and I reassure the Committee that the Bill has been drafted to accommodate different models of account provision, should that situation arise. In the meantime, we will work with the credit union sector to explore further options for Help to Save that work for it.
The hon. Member for Bootle has indicated that he will not seek to press the amendment to a vote, and with those points and that clarification in mind, I urge him to withdraw it.
Ian Blackford
The amendments would allow Help to Save to provide for top-up monthly payments above £50 as long as the average monthly payment in every two-month period was £50. Many people in the target group will have fluctuating incomes. Allowing people to save a maximum of only £50 per month will reduce applications from people who may have, say, £20 spare one month and £70 spare the next.
A survey by StepChange revealed that 34% of respondents
“would prefer to be able to pay in an average maximum of £50 per month.”
The amendments would allow Help to Save account holders to save an average of £50 per month over the course of the account period. That would allow account holders to overpay to catch up following lower payments in previous months and maximise bonus payments. I hope that the Minister will look favourably upon the amendments as a way of strengthening the Bill.
Jane Ellison
The amendments are about the scheme rules on monthly deposit limits. They would provide that rather than the maximum monthly deposit being set at £50, a saver could add an average of £50 per month to their account, calculated over a two-month period. That would allow individuals to make additional catch-up payments to their Help to Save accounts in the event that they did not use their full £50 deposit allowance in a preceding month.
We consulted on whether individuals should be able to pay in excess of the £50 monthly deposit limit to catch up on either unused monthly allowances or withdrawals. Respondents were clear that that would add complexity to the scheme for savers and account providers, and given the objectives of the scheme and our desire for the product to be straightforward and simple, it was vital that the account rules were kept as simple as possible to ensure that the scheme was easy to understand and accessible to the target group. Having an average monthly deposit limit would complicate the simple position that we propose in relation to account limits.
I entirely understand the spirit in which the amendments were tabled, but we consulted on this issue and the feedback that we received was that that was not the most straightforward way to proceed for the target group. It may also help the Committee to know that the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that on average people will deposit £27.50 into their accounts each month. That suggests that a £50 monthly limit is adequate. We have actually raised that limit from the £25 limit that was proposed for the Saving Gateway scheme—a scheme that, as some Members will know, contained elements similar to Help to Save. Quite a lot was learned from it, because it was piloted.
Jane Ellison
It is certainly fair to say that we want to look at all aspects of how we grow the scheme and reach as many eligible people as possible. At this stage, we disagree about offsetting greater flexibility against perhaps great simplicity, and how we balance the two. Because of the way we have structured the Bill and its consequent regulations, there is quite a lot of flexibility built into the scheme in the future. We have the £50 monthly limit in the schedule, but there are ways that we might be able to return to the product and look at it in the future. I come down on the side of simplicity in this argument, and that is why we have proposed what we have—notwithstanding the evidence we heard on Tuesday.
The Saving Gateway, which was essentially the partial forerunner of this scheme, had a proposed limit of only £25. Given the OBR’s forecast that £27.50 will be the average deposit, doubling the limit from Saving Gateway effectively allows for people to make almost twice that average deposit. In effect, the upper limit offers the flexibility that the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber proposes. It is also worth noting that the four-year duration of an account will allow savers to dip in and out of saving when they can afford to put money aside. Savers will still earn an attractive Government bonus even if they are not in a position to save the full amount each month. With those points in mind, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing the amendment.
Ian Blackford
I thank the Minister for her remarks, but I am both a little surprised and a little disappointed. I thought the Government were in favour of freedom and choice and what we seem to have here is a Government who are trying to shut down freedom and choice. The Minister talks about complexity; I cannot see why giving consumers the choice of being able to get to £50 over an average will bring additional complexity. I think that this is really just a software issue for those who are going to be providing the scheme, so I do not accept that argument. We will be pressing the amendment to a vote, because it is the right thing to do. This is about growing the market for Help to Save, and the amendment has been put forward with a genuine desire to help the Government make this policy more attractive. The Minister talks about coming back to the scheme in the future, but I think we should put that flexibility in today. On that basis, I wish to press the amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Ian Blackford
That is not the point that I made, which was about when payments are in the pension pot. We are arguing that the pots should be protected under the Help to Save scheme. Given that a key purpose of the Help to Save scheme is to promote long-term financial resilience, it would be counterproductive if creditors could take the money saved, or even the bonus, to satisfy existing debts. That would result in creditors benefiting from public money intended to help low-income families build precautionary savings. At the very least, the bonus should be protected. For the absence of doubt, there is a precedent for that in the 1999 Act, which states that approved pension arrangements do not form part of the bankrupt’s estate.
Jane Ellison
The amendment seeks to prevent creditors from accessing the Government bonus in the event that the account holder is subject to insolvency proceedings or a third-party debt order. Obviously I appreciate that the objective is to protect the account holder, but the Government also need to consider what is fair to creditors by not providing people with an opportunity to shelter from debt proceedings when a creditor has a legal right to be repaid.
I am aware that it has been argued that a special case should be made for ring-fencing the Government bonus to avoid taxpayers’ money being used to repay debts, but I underline that the scheme rules mean that account holders will be entitled to a bonus on the highest balance achieved in the account. That represents an asset for the account holder, and it should be treated as such in any insolvency proceedings.
It is worth noting that there was a Government policy change that meant that, from October 2015, the minimum debt on which creditors can ask the court to declare an individual bankrupt rose to £5,000 from £750, ensuring that people with low-level debts are taken out of that. This measure is consistent with Government policy in other areas—that is the point my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire made—such as the rules around when funds to pay creditors can be deducted from benefit payments.
Jane Ellison
A fair point—I certainly acknowledge what the hon. Gentleman says. What we propose in the Bill around creditors and insolvency is consistent with Government policy in other areas. For those reasons, I urge the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber to withdraw the amendment.
Ian Blackford
I am flabbergasted that some Government Back Benchers do not even understand their own legislation. The amendment would put Help to Save on the same footing as pension pots, and I will certainly press it to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Savings (Government Contributions) Bill
Debate between Jane Ellison and Ian BlackfordMonday 17th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Savings (Government Contributions) Act 2017 View all Savings (Government Contributions) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jane Ellison
That interaction has been addressed in the Bill’s impact assessment. There was some concern about the Help to Buy ISA and the interaction with automatic enrolment, but we have seen no evidence of it driving a higher opt-out rate. In fact, the opt-out rate for automatic enrolment is lower than forecast—even on the forecast that was revised down. I note the hon. Gentleman’s concern but I think it has been addressed in the work that we have done.
What is attractive about the lifetime ISA is that people do not have to make an immediate decision about why they are saving this money, which goes back to the hon. Gentleman’s point about people not having to make that decision at an early stage when they cannot see what is ahead.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
Anyone saving into an auto-enrolment pension will get tax relief up front, but anyone who invests in a lifetime ISA will be making that investment out of taxed income. Does the Minister see the unfairness in that?
Jane Ellison
Obviously, we have the Government bonus, which I mentioned, but I go back to the point about this not being an either/or choice; this is about people having potentially complementary products that are for different purposes. This product is not about replacing a pension; it is about giving people a complementary product to help them save for later in life, while keeping open the option of building up money to put towards a house. As we have seen, many hundreds of thousands of people have taken that opportunity with the previous ISA product.
The lifetime ISA can be used by people to get on to the property ladder for the first time and can be put towards a home worth less than £450,000. Through this Bill, from April next year a new, more flexible way to save will be available to people, as one of a number of options.
The Bill also introduces Help to Save, which is about finding a better way to support families who are just about managing but are struggling to build up their savings. All Members will be aware of the research carried out by a number of bodies, particularly the excellent Centre for Social Justice, which estimates that 3 million low-income households have no savings at all. That is not a nice position for anyone to be in: living without having any kind of financial safety net in place and knowing that if they lose their job, they have barely got enough money to pay next month’s rent.
Ian Blackford
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that that was the beginning of the end for defined benefit pension schemes in this country. At the time, just about every company in the FTSE 100 had a defined benefit pension scheme. There are hardly any today. My criticism of what the Government are doing with the Bill is that they are once again undermining pension saving. I will come on to the facts of the matter. We cannot get away from this: anybody saving into a pension does so out of pre-tax income. Anybody investing in the LISA will be doing so out of taxed income. That is unfair and unjust. As I mentioned earlier, this is more about a wheeze for the Government to generate taxation income. It is wrong and they should not be doing it without proper incentives for the young people they are targeting.
We would resist any further attempts to undermine pension saving and, specifically, to change the tax status of pension savings. That would be little more than an underhand way of driving up tax receipts—sweet talking workers to invest after-tax income in LISAs when their interests are best served by investing in pensions. We have considerable challenges in ensuring that we take appropriate action and provide the right kind of leadership to encourage pension savings above all else. That is not happening under this Conservative Government. Pension savings are the most tax-efficient arrangement for savers and that is what we ought to prioritise
We also need to revisit the issue of pension tax relief to make it fairer to pension savers. Many commentators and providers, such as Zurich, have suggested that a flat rate of pension tax relief could increase saving among low earners. While ensuring pensions remain an attractive investment for higher earners, it would be inherently fairer. Coupled with auto-enrolment, it would give a powerful boost to the pensions of millions of workers and help the vast majority of people to save more for retirement. It would also end the complexity of the current regime and set tax relief at a sustainable level for the longer term. That kind of approach rather flies in the face of what the Minister has signed off in the impact assessment, which states:
“The government could have done nothing more, relying on existing tax incentives to promote saving among younger people and working families on low income. However, this would have failed to provide the necessary level of support for those who are unable to use existing support to plan and save for their future.”
This is bunkum. Tax relief can be addressed, as I have said, but we must also take into account the fact that a review of auto-enrolment is due in 2017. We can strengthen auto-enrolment to deliver inclusion and encourage pension saving. We want to work with the Government to strengthen auto-enrolment and pension savings, which are the most efficient way for young people to save.
Just today, as we debate the Bill, the Financial Times has published an article highlighting new analysis on pension savings conducted by Aon. The analysis concluded that UK pension savings have a massive deficit of £11 billion a year. A poll of 2,000 pension savers indicates that only 16% of workers are saving enough to maintain their standard of living when they stop work. Why on earth do we want to take attention away, through the Bill the Government are bringing forward, from pension savings? Why are we not focusing on what we should be doing: fixing the problems in the pension industry? That is the priority of those of us on the SNP Benches.
The Aon analysis suggests that members of defined contribution schemes on average need to pay an extra £1,400 a year to achieve a decent retirement income. That is what we should be addressing in this Chamber here tonight. My message to the Government is this: let us all work together to tackle the under-investment in pension savings, to deal with the many challenges we face, and to enhance the attractions of pension savings. That is the priority. Today, too many people are excluded from workplace pensions.
I commend the introduction of auto-enrolment, but recognise that more needs to be done to enhance auto-enrolment and seek to offer affordable solutions to the low-paid, women and the self-employed who, to use the Prime Minister’s term, have been left behind. We need to tackle the issue of those who are currently excluded, such as the 20% of workers who earn less than £10,000 a year. We need to make sure we have an inclusive approach to pension savings that works for all workers.
The average value of conventional ISAs held by those aged between 25 and 34 is £5,186. The annual allowance for the lifetime ISA as proposed is £4,000, so from experience of ISAs this question needs to be addressed: who exactly will benefit? It looks like yet another policy to benefit the rich who can afford to save at such a level and therefore get the full benefits of the Government bonus. So much for the sermon from the Prime Minister about delivering policies for those left behind. It looks to us more like the same old policies for the benefit of the wealthy. When we look at the news today we see that the UK is looking to spend billions of pounds for the City to access the single market—and we should not be surprised. It is yet another case of the poor subsidising the rich.
We need to address the unintended consequences of quantitative easing, which has driven down yields, moderating expectations of future growth for pension funds and substantially increasing the deficit for many defined pension schemes, as the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) mentioned. If we add to that the decline in annuity rates, which is cutting expectations of pensioner income, it means that savers have to increase their contributions to defined contribution schemes. This makes for a challenging environment for pension savers, which needs to be addressed.
On 11 July, the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb), said that
“there is a very real systemic issue with DB pension schemes that we need to look at, and my Department will be discussing it further in the months ahead.”—[Official Report, 11 July 2016; Vol. 613, c. 10.]
Since that statement, there has been silence from the Government. Where is the response to the fundamental challenges for today’s pensions and, as some might argue, the crisis in both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes?
We know of the significant factors affecting the BHS and British Steel schemes, and we know that hundreds of other schemes are facing significant deficits. Rather than seeing the Government face up to these challenges and the threat to the many beneficiaries of the schemes, we see a missed opportunity to tackle what ought to be the priorities. When will the Government respond in detail to what the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions admitted, which we all know to be the case? I give the Minister the opportunity to intervene and tell us what the Government have done since the announcement of the previous Secretary of State. Where is the Government’s response? What do they have to say about the deficit on defined pension schemes? I see Government Members on the Front Bench looking down, but we need answers. What we get from this Government is no action.
Jane Ellison
I draw the House’s attention to the fact that we had DWP questions earlier today, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman took the opportunity to put his question then.
Ian Blackford
That was a politic answer. I cannot help but remark that I asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions a question earlier today, which was enlightening in itself. I asked a question about the WASPI women. I raised a specific point, saying that the SNP had put proposals in front of this Government as we were asked to do. We said that we could deal with the WASPI issue by spending £8 million, which, by the way, the Government could afford to spend because there is a surplus of nearly £30 billion sitting in the national insurance fund. What was the answer we got from the Secretary of State? It was to get the Scottish Government to do that. What he failed to realise is that this House has not given the Scottish Parliament the responsibility for pensions. Why not do that now, then? The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government would certainly take responsibility for pensions and for pensioners, which this Government are walking away from.
Nothing is being done by this Government. They are like rabbits caught in headlights. That is exactly what we got when the Financial Secretary intervened just now. This is a Government who have no answers to the real issues and the real problems that affect us in the pension landscape. They have been caught doing nothing in the face of systemic risk, which the Government themselves recognise. The Financial Secretary turned around and said, “It is not for me, but for the Department for Work and Pensions”. Well, I am sorry, but she is a Minister of the Government, and this is a Government responsibility. She should be coming to this place with answers.
We also need to recognise that although this Bill will help some savers, it does little to help those who cannot afford to save for later life. Of course, we have had the benefit of the Work and Pensions Select Committee holding an inquiry into the effect of the lifetime ISA on auto-enrolment. Evidence from the Association of British Insurers stated:
“Presented as a choice, no employee will be better off saving into a Lifetime ISA than they would under automatic enrolment. This is due to the loss of employer contributions.”
A recent Standard Life analysis shows that the typical gain from tax breaks and minimum employer top-ups to a qualifying workplace pension for a basic rate taxpayer is between 70% and 85%, compared with the return of 25% from a LISA. That is the con that this Government are trying to inflict on the people of this country. The long-term cost of forgoing annual employer contributions worth 3% of salary by saving into a LISA instead of a workplace pension would be substantial. For a basic rate taxpayer, the impact would be savings of roughly one third less by the age of 60. For example, an employee earning £25,000 per annum and saving 4% of their income each year would see a difference in excess of £53,000. After 42 years, someone saving through a pension scheme would have a pot worth £166,289.99 at a growth rate of 3%. Under a LISA at the same growth rate the value would be £112,646.75. Is the Minister going to defend this?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Jane Ellison and Ian Blackford(8 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
The Minister will be aware that mortality rates in England and Wales have increased by 5.4% in 2015—the biggest increase in the death rate for decades. She will also be aware that mortality rates have been rising since 2011. Has she done any analysis of what has been behind those trends? Specifically, with the Cridland review starting, what will her Department do to negotiate with Cridland on the increase in the pensionable age to take account of the recent changes taking place?
Jane Ellison
We welcome the overall trend towards longer life expectancy. There are annual fluctuations, but overall the trend remains positive. The key thing is helping people to live longer, healthier lives. Therefore, tackling health inequalities among people of all ages and in all communities is embedded in policy right across the Department—for example, the investment in nearly doubling the health visitor workforce over the previous Parliament—so that we can really bear down on the things that drive those health inequalities, particularly among poorer communities and poorer children.