A bolt from the blue

Conservative plans to curtail tax-funded payments into child trust funds have not gone down well. The scheme should be expanded not cut back, says the industry

At the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, shadow chancellor George Osborne outlined his ideas to tackle Britain’s spiralling deficit. Among plans to remove tax benefits for higher earners, he also promised to rejig the child trust fund (CTF). The CTF scheme was introduced by the current government in 2005. At its launch, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said “The child trust fund is designed to ensure every child in our country has assets and wealth, no child is left out and all children in Britain have a stake in the wealth of the nation.” Osborne now plans...