Promoting saving throughout life
The Government’s strategy for promoting saving and asset accumulation is founded on its core welfare principles:
Security
Helping individuals accumulate a stock of financial assets for times of adversity;
Opportunity
Assets enable individuals to take advantage of opportunities throughout life and widen choice; and
Responsibility
Developing the saving habit to promote independence.
Building on these principles, the Government aims to widen the opportunities for saving, especially for those on low to moderate incomes.
To help deliver this strategy, the Government has continued to develop proposals and a series of saving products as part of the Saving and Assets agenda including:
- introducing Individual Savings Accounts as the Government's primary vehicle for tax-free saving outside pensions. They have helped to make saving, and the benefits of saving, easier for ordinary investors to understand;
- welcoming and taking forward the conclusions of the Sandler Review of Medium and Long Term Retail Savings in the UK;
- consulting widely on the Pensions Green Paper proposals to enable those of working age to plan more effectively for a secure retirement; and
- announcing details of the Child Trust Fund and piloting the Saving Gateway - which are designed to extend the benefits of saving and asset-ownership, especially to lower income individuals.
The Government gave an update on each of these aspects of the Savings strategy in Budget 2005 - Chapter 5.
For more information see: