Savings (Government Contributions) Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I thank the hon. and learned Lady for reading from the impact assessment, but I was asking whether specific groups are more likely to save than others, and I do not think the assessment provides that information.

Most importantly, however, how will the scheme help the remaining 3 million people who simply cannot afford to participate in it? I can sum up my concerns about this element of the Bill by reiterating comments made by our former shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, who stated that the scheme was

“like stealing someone’s car and then offering them a lift to the bus stop.”

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I have to confess that I am a little confused by the hon. Lady’s arguments. Is she saying that because the scheme will not target all 3.5 million people who may be eligible, the Government should do nothing? Despite the fact that it might be a partial success or that a large number of people might take up the scheme, she seems to be saying that because not everybody will take it up, this is not worth doing.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

No, that is not what I am saying at all. It is important that we address this issue, but we have to be clear about how we do so. Dealing with the root causes of poverty and people’s inability to save is the first important thing that the Government need to look at, and then the second element they need to consider when rolling out the measures in the Bill is the specific groups they intend to target. If they do not target the 3.5 million people who are eligible to take part in the scheme, how will they help those who do not take part in it?

There is considerable unease about the lifetime ISA policy across the pensions industry, the trade union movement, the Office for Budget Responsibility and Select Committees of this House. The Opposition support the idea of incentivising people to save for the future, especially for retirement income, but we are concerned that the scheme could create a diversion from saving in traditional pension products, rather than being an add-on to one’s main pension plan. Even a former Pensions Minister stated that the LISA “could even destroy pensions”. The UK faces a pensions time bomb. Eleven million people are signed up to defined benefit schemes in 6,000 pension funds in the UK, but PricewaterhouseCoopers recently produced data showing that the collective deficit in those 6,000 schemes had risen by £100 billion in just one month so that it stood at £710 billion at the end of August. Earlier this year, the OECD reported that we were facing a “global pension crisis” in which a person buying an annuity today who had saved 10% of their wages into a pension for 40 years could expect just over half the earnings of someone who had saved the same amount but retired 15 years ago.

This situation is very worrying, especially when the state pension in its current form certainly cannot be relied on to plug the gap. Last week, the OBR published a report concluding that recent pensions and savings measures introduced or announced by the Government would create a £5 billion a year black hole in the public finances. The report states:

“The net effect on the public finances is positive in the early years, peaking at £2.3 billion in 2018-19 before turning negative from 2021-22—the year after our March 2016 forecast horizon…But the small net gain to the public finances from these measures over the medium-term is reversed in the long term as the net cost continues to rise, reaching £5 billion by 2034-35. Expressed as a share of GDP—a more relevant metric when considering fiscal sustainability—the net cost builds up until it reaches a steady state toward the end of the period of just over 0.1 per cent of GDP. If that steady-state effect was to continue to the end of our usual long-term projection horizon of 50 years, that seemingly small cost would add 3.7 per cent of GDP to public sector net debt.”

The report also said that these measures

“shifted incentives in a way that makes pensions saving less attractive—particularly for higher earners—and non-pension savings more attractive—often in ways that can most readily be taken up by the same higher earners.”

That is a pretty worrying assessment of the Government’s pensions and savings policy, in which the LISA will play a large part.

I am also worried about the level of assessment that the Government have carried out about the impact that the LISA could have on pension savings, and, more specifically, their auto-enrolment scheme. The Work and Pensions Committee has outlined its concerns about the threat to automatic enrolment in workplace pensions, the roll-out of which is having a great deal of success. The Committee was particularly worried about the risk of people opting out of a workplace pension in order to save in a LISA, thinking that it will be more of a beneficial pension savings product when it is not. The Committee highlighted extreme ambiguity about whether the LISA is intended to be a pension replacement.

As the House will recall, the previous Chancellor stated in his Budget speech that the LISA was for

“those under 40, many of whom have not had such a good deal from the pension system”.—[Official Report, 16 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 966.]

That was something of an indication that this was a new-generation pensions product. On the other hand, the Department for Work and Pensions has stated that the LISA is

“not a part of the pension system but an additional flexible savings product”.

I am pleased that the Minister has, once and for all, clarified this point and stated that it is a complementary product. None the less, many witnesses who gave evidence to the Select Committee said that all indications so far suggested that the LISA was being interpreted as a pension product, including those from the Centre for Policy Studies, which actually developed the LISA and stated that many employees not already in a pension scheme would have to decide whether to save through a LISA or enrol in the pension scheme. Royal London stated that many people could in fact opt out of workplace pensions.

Will the Minister therefore confirm whether she has made any assessment of the impact of the LISA on automatic enrolment into workplace pensions? Will she confirm what safeguards will be put in place to ensure that people do not opt out of auto-enrolment? Will the Government mount a detailed advertising campaign, as suggested by the Select Committee, to ensure that people do not wrongly view the LISA as their main pension product? The Pensions Regulator has argued that by 2017, when the LISA is available, thousands of small and micro-businesses will not have rolled out auto-enrolment. Have the Government considered timing the LISA roll-out to coincide with the full completion of auto-enrolment to avoid the risks I have outlined?

It is acknowledged that LISAs will be successful among those who have savings elsewhere. There might simply be a case of them transferring those savings into LISAs, but will the Government provide the distributional analysis of the income groups who will specifically benefit the most? Will they confirm what impact the scheme will have on women and minority groups, especially, and therefore provide a much more detailed impact assessment, as the Work and Pensions Committee suggested? Will the Minister confirm what the Government will do to assess those groups that are not currently saving or unable to save, and what will they do to ensure that these people will be able to avail themselves of the scheme? The Select Committee has suggested that those who might benefit most from the scheme could be those who can afford to contribute to a pension scheme and deposit additional savings in a LISA to complement their retirement savings—higher earners, in other words. In these difficult economic times, Opposition Members question whether the scheme is an effective use of up to £2 billion of public funds.

Another concern is not simply that people will use the LISA as an alternative pension product, but that there will be nothing to stop them from taking the money early for other purposes, aside from as a deposit for a house. The Bill enforces a 25% charge for the early withdrawal of funds, which effectively removes the Government bonus, but people will not lose anything from their savings. That will therefore not be a significant deterrent from removing money early, so there is a significant risk for those who use the product as their sole pension income.

LISA funds may be used towards a deposit for a first home. That is not a bad thing, but the Government are failing to address the wider problems that are causing the housing crisis. There is no point having a deposit if there are no houses to buy. We need a significant private and social house building programme supported by the Government, not populist policy making. It is a shame that fewer new homes were built during the previous Parliament than under any peacetime Government since the 1920s. Labour has committed to build more than 1 million new homes over the next Parliament, and that is the level of intervention that is required of any Government who truly want to ensure that everyone can live in a decent and secure home.

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[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I hesitate to detain the House by repeating much of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) in his thoughtful speech, but I particularly wanted to speak in support of the Help to Save scheme, which seems to be the Cinderella scheme in today’s debate.

Rare is the politician who understands the difference between profit and loss and the balance sheet. That is normally left to dull accountants like me. We spend a great deal of time in the House talking about people’s differential profit-and-loss accounts—the difference in earnings, and whether some members of society earn far too much in comparison with others—and we do a fair amount in trying to close that gap. However, we often fail to recognise that the solution to those inequalities in society, and the solution to the problem of poverty more generally, are first multi-generational and secondly as much about the balance sheet—the asset share that those people may have for the future—as about how much they happen to earn at the moment. Anything that enables people with low incomes, who may be on benefits or the like but who are certainly at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, to start to get the idea of saving and, in particular, investing the money saved in assets can only be applauded.

One of our problems in this country is that the collective balance sheet—the assets held both privately and publicly—is concentrated in far too few hands. Over the last 20 or so years there has been a diminution in the number of people who own shares or, indeed, have any asset base, even ownership of their houses. We need to reverse that, but sadly it has been far too low on Ministers’ agendas. A good example is the sell-off of the Post Office. The retail tranche of sales—the shares that were to be sold to members of the public in small lots—was scaled back, while the tranche that was being sold to large institutions such as Goldman Sachs was inflated. It seemed insane that a Liberal Democrat Secretary of State, in particular, would do that. There was a lost opportunity to spread what was known back in the 1980s, in the heyday of a certain politician, as the “ownership society”. The former Member of Parliament for Richmond, Yorks, William Hague, said that we should be a share-owning, property-owning society, and should roll back the frontiers of the state to enable that to happen.

I am keen for Help to Save to be promoted, because it allows people with very low incomes, or no incomes at all, to start thinking about their own asset bases and start saving for the future. However, I should like the Minister to consider a couple of issues. First, I do not understand why there is a cap on the amount that can be contributed. If someone earning a very low wage is able to contribute £20 a week or £20 a month year in, year out, why should we seek to limit that? Why should we not allow such people to build up a fund which they could use in the future, possibly passing it on to their children, who might then decide to do the same? Secondly, £50 seems a rather small amount to me, particularly for someone who is starting to build up an amount and getting into the spirit of saving. Thirdly, especially in the current interest-rate environment, requiring people to hold their savings in cash strikes me as self-defeating. Allowing them to go to their banks and buy, for instance, shares in Marks & Spencer or Royal Bank of Scotland—when, hopefully, they become available—would give them the idea that they could benefit from the country’s asset base.

It is worth noting that, when it comes to the lump sums that people want to accumulate over their lives, their aspirations are often quite modest. Many years ago a great friend of mine who works in television was devising a new quiz show, and wanted to establish what prize money he should offer so that he could deal with the show’s finances. A survey was conducted, and people in the United Kingdom were asked what amount constituted “change your life money”. In this age of the lottery, my friend thought that the answer would be hundreds of thousands of pounds, but in fact it was just over £6,000. That is what the vast bulk of British people thought was “change your life money” which would give them the chance to start to build for the future.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

The Money Advice Service recently found that 21 million families had less than £500 in savings. What does my hon. Friend think about the lack of financial literacy and money management skills among people who do not have the techniques and the basic understanding that would enable them to manage their personal finances?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend has touched on an interesting issue. What she has said reflects one of the observations made by the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). Over the past three or four decades people have, perhaps, been infantilised in respect of the financial choices that they make, and politicians in the House of Commons may have sought to make their choices for them. Personally, I would like the opportunity to decide between a lifetime ISA, a pension and a normal ISA, for instance, but then I am a chartered accountant of moderate skill—deeply moderate; I resigned on the day I qualified for exactly that reason—but I recognise that plenty of people feel confused and are unable to do so. We have taken the power away from them over the years, and we must start to reverse that. We must either put choice back into their hands, or educate them so that they can make those choices in the future. The financial world is becoming ever more complicated, and if people are to do well out of it—particularly those on lower incomes—they will need to have that kind of knowledge.

Another reason why people should take an interest in acquiring assets rather than the mere ins and outs of their monthly incomes is the fact that a number have missed out, recently in particular, on what could have been a big upswing in their wealth. Brexit has seen a massive rise in the stock market, and anyone who has had stocks and shares over the last couple of months will have done extremely well. Similarly, the housing market has risen prodigiously over the last three or four years.

[Ian Blackford]

Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that there has been a massive 16% decline in the value of sterling over the last couple of months? Moreover, the fact that the market has risen as much as it has is due, quite simply, to the overseas earnings of United Kingdom companies. It is not that the world thinks the United Kingdom has become a more investable case; indeed, some would argue that it has become a basket case.

[Kit Malthouse]

I entirely agree that overseas earnings are rising. That is why the stock market has increased so significantly, and I think that is a good thing. I am proud to say that I voted “out”. I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman thinks should be the level of the pound, but I think it should be at a level that increases our overseas earnings, means that people will re-shore manufacturing—because it is now more expensive for goods to be made overseas—and helps our exporters. I cannot see that that is anything other than beneficial for a country that is carrying a massive current account deficit.

The point that I am trying to make, however, is that 40 or perhaps 30 years ago many more people were investing in the stock market by buying shares in British Gas and all the privatised industries, and those people would have been benefiting from the present upswing. I am proud to ask my postman how his shares are doing every time I see him, and I should like to be able to say the same to most people on low incomes.

[Ian Blackford]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should ask his postman how much his holiday will cost him next year. There is a real problem for the United Kingdom, which is that inflation is now going to increase. We have already seen the impact of the likes of Unilever seeking to pass on 10% price increases. At a time when wage growth in the United Kingdom is limited, we have choked off next year’s consumption. That is the effect of Brexit. This is not about wealth; it is about an economy that has been damaged by the Brexiters.

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[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to know that I disagree with him. I hesitate to get into a bit of economic argy-bargy in this debate—I was hoping to keep my comments short—but inflation is currently running at 0.6%, and as a result we have extremely low interest rates. The Bank of England’s target is 2%. I am pleased that the low pound may help it to get to that level because there is no doubt that low inflation, or a deflationary environment in real terms, is extremely damaging to the economy. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that the effect he desires of the drop in the pound has happened: my wife and I decided just this week that this February half-term we would go to Scotland on holiday rather than overseas. We would like to explore the glorious land of his birth. I hope that more and more British consumers will do the same. We may even see the rejuvenation of the tourism industry in lovely places such as Blackpool.

[Mr Gareth Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman has set out three concerns, if I remember rightly, about Help to Save. I wonder whether he shares my view and that of the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) that the Government need to do more to explain why they think there should be a two-year qualifying period for the Government bonus for Help to Save, as opposed to just 12 months.

[Kit Malthouse]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Government should look at exactly that. The barriers to saving that are in the way of people on low incomes should be removed as much as possible. I like his suggestion that people should be able opt to save out of their payroll—that employers should make the deduction. I like anything that makes it painless. The Government opt for PAYE because it takes our taxes away from us painlessly; we do not actually have to give them over. Doing the same with savings would be a good idea.

Throughout my life, my granny, until she sadly died when she was 94, put £5 every month in a post office savings account for me. She gave the savings to me on my 21st birthday. I have always been grateful for that money. I still have it sitting in that savings account. I hope and believe that I will be able to pass it on to my three children as a sign of what can be done by putting £5 away every month—a sign of the change that is possible from the first generation, from the back streets of Harrogate, to me now as a Member of Parliament.

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[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) on his comments, particularly those about the Help to Save product the Government are introducing. He talked about the Government looking at the role of credit unions and whether it would be possible to use payroll. It would be helpful if the Ministers, whom I welcome to the Chamber, commented on those matters, as well as some of the IFS criticisms and the very helpful Library briefing.

I want to focus on the Government’s lifetime ISA. We should not question its intentions. Its simple aim is to increase savings among the young and to help more people on to the housing ladder, and surely none of us can have any objection to that in principle. The difficulty is that we do not, of course, start with a blank sheet of paper, and adding yet more products to the already complicated savings landscape risks bringing unintended consequences. I want to focus on that risk.

As the Library briefing rather coyly puts it, over the past 25 years, a string of largely tax-based savings incentive schemes has been brought in under different Governments. Some Members will remember the stakeholder scheme, yet not many will perhaps now remember personal equity plans, tax-exempt special savings accounts, child trust funds—they ceased not that long ago—or indeed the saving gateway, which was never rolled out nationally. When we consider the lifetime ISA and what it is proposed that it will achieve, we must also bear in mind what other savings products exist.

Under the general heading of “savings” I include pensions; they are simply a particular form of savings designed primarily to provide people with adequate income in retirement. Of course as we live ever longer, the value of having those savings, lasting well beyond an age to which people were expected to live not long ago, becomes more important. The Government have a crucial role to play as the body that will prop up all or any of us when we run out of savings. I want to focus on a couple of things within the product range of savings and the potential unintended consequences of this Bill.

The LISA was introduced in this year’s Budget after the Chancellor said that it was clear there was no consensus on the future development of pensions. But in a sense he revealed his own hand by increasing the ISA limit and proposing the introduction of the lifetime ISA. This showed the Treasury’s direction of travel very clearly. It is no surprise that the Centre for Policy Studies has welcomed this ISA since, it says, it is similar to a proposal made in the past. Indeed, Michael Johnson at the CPS has been advocating the end of pensions for a long time. I have described him as the Guy Fawkes of the pensions industry—he would love to blow the whole thing up tomorrow if he could. The lifetime ISA was just one of his steps towards that goal, with a workplace ISA coming in next.

That is where some of the problems start. The Chancellor’s main underlying argument for introducing the LISA was that younger people did not understand pensions—that they were far too complicated and were not popular and therefore we needed to use the well-known brand of the ISA. I have clashed many times with the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford)—mostly happily—on pensions issues. His contributions are normally way over the top, as, unsurprisingly, they were again this evening. However, he was right to use the quotation in the Association of British Insurers briefing, demonstrating that, interestingly, the opt-out rates in auto-enrolment among the under-30s have been the lowest of all age groups. That arguably suggests that younger people do not necessarily find pensions complicated when they are provided with a solution in the workplace into which they, their employer and the Government can all contribute and the paperwork is easy. So pensions do not have to be any more complex than any other form of savings, but what makes the whole sector more complicated is the constant temptation of successive Chancellors to act as product designer for the industry and introduce yet more different products.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am a little puzzled by my hon. Friend’s use of the statistic that the under-30s have the lowest opt-out rate. The under-30s will of course become the over-30s and the over-40s, and they might well opt out at that point. Their continuing to opt in at this early stage, when they might not have quite so much pressure on their wage packet, is not necessarily indicative of what they will do in the future.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly reasonable point, but he should bear in mind the fact that opt-out rates were expected to be 25% and are averaging 9% so far. The Government’s expectations about opt-out rates have therefore, happily, been proved wrong. He is right to say that the under-30s will become the over-30s, but we should all be trying to encourage those people to stay in and build up their savings through the pensions scheme, rather than introducing a competitive product that could, for various marketing reasons, seem more attractive and therefore divert people of all ages from the good and noble cause, which I think he supports, of building up more savings for their retirement.