Child Savings Accounts (Mental Capacity and Disability)

Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about access to matured child savings accounts in the name of a young person who lacks capacity; to require the Secretary of State to review savings provision for children and young people with disabilities including those who lack capacity; and for connected purposes.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to tell you about a family. When Mikey Turner was born, his parents did what so many parents do. They saved for him—not much; a little here, a little there—because they loved their son and they wanted to give him the best chance in life. They put money into a child trust fund, the Government savings account that existed for children born between 2002 and 2011, topped up with £500 of public money as a foundation for every child’s future. However, what they did not know at the time was that Mikey would grow up to have profound disabilities. He lacks the mental capacity to manage money independently. When his child trust fund matured on his 18th birthday, something absurd happened: the money that his family had saved for him, because of him and out of love for him, was, in effect, locked away. His parents, who have cared for Mikey every single day of his life, who are recognised by the Department for Work and Pensions as his appointees, who manage his benefits and who make decisions on his behalf, were told that they could not practically access their own child’s savings account. Instead, they were pointed towards the Court of Protection.

The Court of Protection exists for good reasons, but we are talking about a process that can take over a year, cost hundreds of pounds in fees, require lengthy medical assessments, and demand a level of legal navigation and sophistication that would daunt even the most confident of us. This is a family seeking access to a few thousand pounds saved in their own child’s account. For a family already stretched by the daily demands of caring for a severely disabled child, this is, frankly, an injustice.

Mikey’s father, Andrew Turner, is my constituent. It is six years since Mikey’s 18th birthday, and for all that time, Andrew has campaigned on this issue, both for himself and for all the other affected families. In that time, he has had to make his case 10 different times to 10 different Justice Ministers, seven Conservative and three Labour—with perhaps another coming soon, although I hope not. Such is the churn in ministerial positions. OneFamily and Contact have supported him throughout, and I want to thank Una Summerson and Maria Scholey at Contact for everything that they have contributed. Together, Andrew, the industry and campaigners have brought this Bill to the House, and the strength of support for it from across Parliament speaks for itself.

Andrew’s is far from being the only such case. An estimated 80,000 disabled young people face, or will face, this same barrier, and that number can only grow, because junior individual savings accounts, the successor to child trust funds, will begin to mature before the end of the decade. Junior ISAs have the same fatal flaw, and some children with junior ISAs will also, sadly, grow up to be unable to manage their affairs. If we take no action, we will see the injustice repeat itself, but on an even greater scale.