Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of automatically releasing funds in unclaimed adult-owned Child Trust Funds through the (a) benefit, (b) payroll and (c) student loan systems.

The Government is aware of suggestions that a system could be developed for paying out the savings held in matured Child Trust Fund (CTF) accounts that have not been accessed by the account owners by the age of 21.

The savings in these accounts belong to the account owners, and are held by private sector CTF providers. The Government does not have the authority to close these accounts, or to access and transfer the savings in them. Neither does the infrastructure that would be needed across government departments and CTF providers to implement the proposal, exist.

The Government is committed to reuniting all young adults with their CTFs.

HMRC works with CTF providers, industry representatives and others such as the University and Colleges Admissions service to explore ways of enabling account owners to be aware of and trace their accounts.