Speeches by Reynolds.

“We are not here to give financial advice to people. It will depend very much on your circumstance. It will depend on your allowance. It will depend on what your employer does in terms of contributions. It will depend whether you prefer to pay tax up front and be exempt, exempt, so the TEE, which is what Michael Johnson…”

“Yes. The original intention for the basic-rate taxpayer was EEE, but you have to assess that in the round on anything else that you are doing with your money. We have to be careful here. Providers have to be careful to give advice, but I do not want to be quoted from this Committee as saying, “If you have this amount o…”

“We should dig into it more, but what I will say is that it is one savings product, right? There are lots of people between the ages of 18 and 39 who have access to different savings products. It is one of a suite of savings products, so you would not expect the take-up to be a huge percentage. I agree with you that 6% …”

“Those are a lot of hypotheticals. We want to be led by the evidence. We need to look at the evidence. There is significant social benefit in ensuring that we have more first-time buyers. It is something that the Government are prioritising. There are different ways you can do that, as I have suggested. The planning ref…”

“It is not about whether I like it.”

“There are pros and cons. Government is about trade-offs. It is healthy to look at it in the round of the broader ISA framework, but also to see what the advantages and disadvantages of it are. There are advantages to it and there are disadvantages. Some of those have been brought out in your evidence sessions. I am rel…”

“That is what has happened in previous cases, if you look at the help to buy ISA.”

“That will have had an impact on the figures in the early lifetime of this product, because you were still able to subscribe to the help to buy ISA.”

“We know that over 1 million people are invested in this. There is £5.5 billion invested in it. We want to provide reassurance to those people that we want to encourage them to keep saving. We see this as a product that is helping them to do that, but we are looking at the reform of the ISA landscape more broadly.”

“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse; congratulations on your appointment to the Panel. Thank you for presiding over this very good-natured Westminster Hall debate. I wish everybody a happy Easter—I do not know about everybody else, but for me, it is the first day back from a nice Easte…”

“I have heard the hon. Lady’s representation, and I am sure that people in the Treasury hear that representation. I would mention to her more broadly that we have committed to one fiscal event a year, rather than the two or three that we might have seen from the previous Government—we might have got a third one in Septe…”

“Credit unions, mutuals and co-operatives play a hugely important role in our economy and our society. That is why the Government—as my hon. Friend will know, given that she stood on the same Labour manifesto as me—promised in our manifesto to double the size of the mutuals sector, why the Chancellor asked the FCA and t…”

“Such great cross-party working—do not tell anyone else about it! It is really good to work with the hon. Gentleman. I remember fondly—well, not that fondly—being a shadow Minister and having very good, if different, working relationships with the Ministers who I shadowed. I very much welcome the constructive way in whi…”

“The Chancellor delivered the biggest ever settlement for Scotland in October 2024, and I think the answer is “thank you”.”

“Nice try. In terms of north-east growth, I have already said that we are working very closely with the Mayor of the North East combined authority. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman asks questions about roads relevant to his part of the country at Transport questions.”

“The Government understand the importance of in-person banking to communities and are working closely with the industry to roll out 350 banking hubs across the UK. More than 220 hubs have already been announced, of which more than 135 are already open.”

“Securing economic growth across the country is the Government’s No. 1 mission. We are working in partnership with the Mayor of the North East, providing the North East combined authority with an integrated funding settlement from ’26-27, and working with it on its local growth plan.”

“I am always happy to meet colleagues and will be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman.”

“I would be very happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman if he wanted to discuss a specific banking hub that is being considered. We work very closely with Link. As he will know, his Government passed the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, under which the Financial Conduct Authority, Link and the financial services…”

“As I said in my previous answer, we do not have any plans to change the Link criteria; those are a matter for Link. However, there are some flexibilities in the way that it applies the criteria, depending on the local population, travel times to nearby bank branches and, indeed, the number of small businesses in an are…”