Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to promote personal savings and investments in (a) the North East and (b) England.

The Government is committed to supporting savers across the UK at all stages of life and has introduced a range of measures in recent years to help people build their savings in the way that is right for them.

This year we are introducing a new Help to Save scheme to support working families on low incomes to build up a rainy-day fund, by offering a 50% bonus on up to £50 of monthly savings. We have also increased the ISA allowance by a record amount to £20,000 and introduced a Personal Savings Allowance of up to £1,000 for basic rate taxpayers and £500 for higher rate taxpayers. Thanks to these measures over 95% of people pay no tax on their savings income.

ISA statistics detailing the percentage of the adult population who hold an ISA and their average market value, broken down for different regions and countries in the UK, can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/individual-savings-account-statistics