Speeches by Reynolds.

“We will be looking at the advantages and perhaps downsides of all the different ISAs in the round alongside our primary objective, as a Government, to improve people’s living standards through better economic growth. As we said in the spring statement, we are looking at striking a better balance between cash and equiti…”

“All those choices are finely balanced, Mr Glen, as you will know from your significant stretch in my job. You were the longest serving, weren’t you?”

“There is a competition here! Those decisions are definitely above my pay grade. We are looking in the round at what to do on ISAs. We are very interested in boosting the culture of retail investment. Anything that we do will be very carefully considered. I just want to say to the Committee—I have said this on the Floor…”

“I know there has been some correspondence between the Chair and HMRC. HMRC has commissioned three reports. It brought forward the first report and published it yesterday in order to assist the Committee with your inquiry. Taking it from the top again, the inquiry that you are doing is very timely. The second study, whi…”

“I see what you mean. We do have the JISA to cover that segment of the market.”

“You are the first to mention it. I will have a think about that. I am not sure you would necessarily want to create an overlapping product with the junior ISA.”

“We will take that back.”

“That is very interesting. The second study will be very interesting. The first one is qualitative, as you have seen; the second is quantitative and surveys users of the LISA. The third one surveys non-users of the LISA. These will give us a lot more data, which will be rich in terms of what we can get from it, in a way…”

“We could have a meeting afterwards.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Yes.”

“I am no longer the Pensions Minister, but I take a very close interest in it. I gave up being Pensions Minister not that many months ago. At the moment, we are focused very much on the first stage of the review, not the second, but there is a link between the two.”

“Yes. Just to be clear about hares running, we do not want to add to the speculation. There are a lot of things being written in newspapers, with no offence to the journalists. There is a lot of speculation about what the Government might and might not do. As a Treasury Minister and a Treasury official, it is very diffi…”

“It would be investing in stocks and shares. As part of phase 1 of the pensions review, we are looking at what more can be done to drive investment into our own stock market. That will not be exclusive because, as you will know, Dame Harriett, to have a balanced portfolio you want to be investing in lots of different pl…”

“Yes. That would have helped those who were already able to put more than 20 grand plus into an ISA. I was not the Economic Secretary at the time, but there were reasons for that beyond the additional investment that it might have brought into stocks and shares.”

“I could not possibly comment, but all taxes are kept under review.”

“There are lots of different types of support available to first-time buyers. Arguably the biggest impact for first-time buyers will be increasing the supply of homes. Our Government have committed to building 1.5 million homes over the course of this Parliament. We have taken forward the most ambitious planning reforms…”

“As a Government, we are committed to one fiscal event a year. We think that is better for consumers and business because it means that there are not continual changes twice or three times a year. We are committed to one Budget a year. The spring statement was not a Budget, despite how some might have tried to describe …”

“I am not going to comment about these changes because we are still in the policy consideration phase, but, as I said, we are committed to one fiscal event.”

“That gives people time to plan. If we were to announce any changes, whatever they might be, in the autumn Budget, although there are some that come in straightaway, they would usually come in for the financial year.”