Speeches by Dean.

“The second data point that I would like to ask for, if you have it, is how many people continue to pay into their LISA products after completing their house purchase. I appreciate that it is early days for some, but we should have some years of data and some indication of whether people are putting in anything at all, …”

“Just to clarify, I have a positive balance in my LISA, but that is just because of what was left over after paying down the deposit.”

“It has grown since. It was slightly lower.”

“No. It was about 60p before, but, anyway, I am talking about those making active investments after the point of purchase.”

“There are quite a lot of variables in this conversation, so I want to try to hold a couple of them, if I can. Let us assume that the withdrawal penalty is changed in the way that most of you have proposed, so that there is no effective fine on top of the bonus element afterwards. Let us also assume that some sort of in…”

“Can we assume that the withdrawal charge is now down to 20%, just for the sake of argument? We will have an index link. We will have the withdrawal charge at 20%. Mr Byrnes, you said that most of your users are not getting anywhere near this cap anyway.”

“Can I just ask you a follow-up question, because this is mainly a regional problem as well? London and the south-east are the reason why there is so much upward pressure on the cap. You have said to me that it is too complex to do that. We have had previous products such as help to buy where there was quite a clear reg…”

“I am going to disclose at the beginning that I am a lifetime ISA user. I used it to help save for my first flat, but I will admit that there is now 70p sitting in that account and it has been that way for a number of years. Funmi, is my experience common? Have a lot of people done that, so essentially emptied their acc…”

“It has grown since. It was slightly lower.”

“Yes, please.”

“We will have it minuted, I am sure. Mr Johnson, everybody has this impression of the products behaving in this way. Most people are going for the first-time buyer use. I appreciate that you are putting forward good arguments for why somebody might want to use it as a retirement product, but would it not be more straigh…”

“To come back to my core question, is your primary argument that there are too many products out there already, so we do not want to add another retirement product in, even if you think that this product has more value than others? Is that your core argument for not splitting up the product?”

“My colleague might pick up on that, but I have one final broader question and it speaks a bit to the value-for-money element, as Ms Blake was explaining. Is one of the benefits of this product the actual behaviour and the saving habits that it generates? I am going to reflect on my own experience. Trying to save for a …”

“We will come back to the penalty element. I guess I will ask the rest of the panel this question. There is potential that the Government could design a different product that maybe offers a similar financial incentive. Is there anything unique about this product that you think should be retained in whatever the Governm…”

“Maybe I could ask a follow-up. It was £500 million in the last tax year, but we all accept that the product is not being taken up at the rate that it could be. Hopefully, if we fix that problem and maybe all the major high street banks get involved, it will be taken up by a lot more people. That would be good for those…”

“I accept that. For the sake of this argument, it may well be worth accepting that the Government have decided to do away with the withdrawal penalty, because I want to get to the equity point. Ms Olufunwa, you said earlier that it is free money, so who would not take it? Mr Lewis, you said that a few thousand pounds is…”

“I just want to move to the balance between growth and regulation. You will be aware that the Chancellor has pulled in a lot of the regulators and said that she wants them to be more focused on growth. Could you talk us through the discussions you may have had with Ministers and the Chancellor about the potential risk t…”

“What proportion of meetings do you have with, say, financial industry representatives versus consumer groups?”

“You probably understand my direction of travel. I also read about the Chancellor having industry forums. There have been concerns in the past that industry lobbyists are very powerful and firms can employ them to get access to the Treasury on a scale that is not matched by consumer groups, so can you give us some reass…”

“Yes, I understand.”