Speeches by Reynolds.

“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.”

“We have to talk about people investing for the long term. You will have seen research by AJ Bell and other platforms suggesting that, if people had invested £1,000 a year in an ISA over the 25 years since 1999, they would have made a lot more money in stocks and shares than they would have made in cash. I was talking a…”

“We are looking at ISA reform in the round. We are very keen to hear your recommendations, but we are also very keen to see what the second HMRC study tells us because that is really going to give us a very detailed breakdown.”

“As I say, we are looking at it in the round.”

“Coming back to Dame Harriett’s point, I do not want to set hares running. We have 1 million people invested in this product. It is £5.5 billion. As I said, we are looking at ISA reform in the round. We are very interested to hear what your recommendations are with regard to this product. It is quite an unusual product,…”

“You had Michael Johnson before you, who was very into the detail of the design of the policy.”

“Yes, he did, but I hear he was also quite disappointed with the outcome.”

“It is very interesting to hear the evolution of these things because we were not involved in the design of it. We will look at it in the round.”

“We are looking at it in the round alongside other ISAs and the reforms that we suggested we were looking at in the spring statement. How do we drive better return for savers? How do we support the Government’s ambition to drive greater economic growth?”

“Yes, I heard. Well done. How is it?”

“You have to be in it for the long term.”