Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The first thing that I would say to my hon. Friend is that, of all the schemes that we inherited, this was the one that we thought had the most chance of improvement and was worth investing in. The other schemes had almost no take-up, but this one did. We were able to provide some additional money for it in the Budget, in the form of £200 million to support additional lending. We are also introducing changes to the way the schemes work, so that there will be a limit of 20 business days that all major lenders taking part in the enterprise finance guarantee scheme will have to comply with, so that people are not left on the hook waiting for an answer.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

11. What steps he has taken to encourage saving since the June 2010 Budget; and if he will make a statement.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

The Government want to build a savings culture based on the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility, and we are committed to creating conditions for higher saving. We have already announced a number of measures, including the annual financial health check and an end to the effective requirement to purchase an annuity with tax relief pension savings at the age of 75. We will also increase the amount that can be paid into ISAs each year in line with inflation from April 2011.

[Stephen Mosley]

Recent research from Which? has highlighted the fact that savers are missing out on £12 billion a year by keeping their money in accounts that pay extremely low rates of interest. Would my hon. Friend consider encouraging banks to print the interest rate on bank statements in the same way that credit card companies have to print the rate that they charge on their statements, in order to help savers to identify whether they are getting a good deal from their bank account?

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We need to ensure that savers have the information that they need to enable them to shop around and find the best possible deal. ISA providers have already agreed to disclose interest rates on their statements, and the Financial Services Authority is consulting on extending that duty to other savings accounts.