Universal Credit Work Allowance

Debate between Richard Graham and Owen Smith

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

We seem to have had endless debates on universal credit over the past five and a half to six years, and I am sure that we will have many more.

This Opposition day debate was opened with a call from the shadow Secretary of State to reverse the work allowance changes in universal credit. I sensed that he really wanted to reverse every welfare cut that has been made by this Government and their predecessor. After all, he and his colleagues opposed every penny of savings put forward by the coalition Government. However, he cannot do that, partly because he stood on a manifesto that would have reversed only the smallest welfare savings, such as the spare bedroom subsidy, and partly because he signed up to £12 billion of welfare savings. He did not tell us today that his party would reverse all the changes if it were elected into government, nor how he would find the £12 billion of savings.

[Owen Smith]

rose—

Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Debate between Richard Graham and Owen Smith

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Before coming here I read a document from the Save Child Savings alliance, which hon. Members might have had a chance to look at. I thought it would be helpful to run through some of its points about why it is so important to maintain and retain child trust funds, and answer them one by one. Its first major point is that child trust funds are all about fostering a long-term savings culture. I am sure that everyone in the House, from whatever party, will agree that that is a major national goal. However, the point about a long-term savings culture is that every form of fund or saving, including pensions, is exactly that—savings. So we cannot look at CTFs in isolation. The SCS alliance’s second major point is that keeping CTFs will help to protect the savings culture in the UK. To that, we could add the CTFs’ original goal of spreading financial literacy.

The question at stake this evening, therefore, concerns two main points: first, how effective have CTFs been in delivering either their original goals or the aims suggested by the SCS alliance? Secondly, what choices and other alternatives are available to provide the best for our nation’s children? The results so far show that CTFs have, over their lifetime of just over five years, accumulated £2 billion of assets, which is a reasonable absolute figure on its own. However, £1.4 billion of that was provided by the Government, and only £600 million by the families and friends of those participating. As mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), the take-up amounts to 70%, with 24% of open accounts having received no contribution from participating families or friends.

Many better forms of savings are available in the marketplace for achieving the same ends. In particular, I highlight the existing individual savings accounts, which came from the original personal equity plans of the 1980s. These provide significantly more investment options, have, by and large—although not altogether—delivered better performance and have much lower costs. They can be designated to children, which is important, and cost the taxpayer nothing.

[Owen Smith]

Is that not an unfair comparison, because the ISAs have been in place for much longer than the child trust funds? It is extremely early in the life of CTFs for one to conclude that they will not achieve what they might achieve, and what we would hope they would achieve. A good point was made earlier about the point at which families tend to invest in long-term savings for their children. We can safely assume that more would have been paid in by families and friends at later stages, as more expendable income became available.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman is right that this is a short period of history over which to judge them, but the fact remains that the annual management costs for CTFs, at 1.5%, are significantly higher than most of us would need to pay for an alternative form of savings. That will not alter over time. In answer to the suggestion that, in time, parents, families and friends might put more into the accounts, there is nothing to prevent them from opening an ISA or, as the Minister suggested, a new denomination of children’s ISA—if one becomes available—in their child’s name. Although I think that half the point made by the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) is right, I do not think that the overall impact of CTFs would be positive.