The argument would-be reformers haven’t yet made on cash Isas

Good morning. As some readers will know, something I like to do from time to time is travel the country, knocking on doors and asking people about politics. Just as political parties do.

I’ve been struck by a topic that has come up a few times recently: mooted changes to the amount you can save in a cash Isa.

I’m not surprised this change seems to be unpopular, but I was surprised it came up organically.

Maybe I just knocked on some odd doors. It happens. Regardless, it felt like a good excuse to talk about the politics of the idea, and why it tells a broader story of the difficulties facing the country.

Wiser Isas?

Could some of the £300bn currently in cash Isas be better invested in equities? Well, it’s a question with a response of “depends on who you are”.

If you have a long career ahead of you, you want your pension fund to be risk-taking, because you have many stock market highs and lows to see out before you eventually retire. But if you are saving for the event of a boiler failure or job loss, you don’t really want your savings to be that dynamic. You want to know that if your boiler conks out tomorrow, you can afford to fix it. (And if you are saving to insure yourself against redundancy risk, you may reasonably assume that being laid off is unlikely to correlate with “a good moment to try and cash in your stocks-and-shares Isa”.)

Those reasons and more are why the proposal attracts so much opposition wherever it has been brought up to me, particularly among your Martin Lewis’ Money Saving Expert-reading types. I am yet to cover a British government that didn’t find Lewis deeply annoying at times. But they all keep that irritation extremely quiet because they know he is more trusted than any political party, and his readers are the kind of people who are more open to shopping around politically, for the most part.

The argument would-be reformers haven’t yet made is that individual savers might be making the wrong choices for their goals. The thing they are saving for might be better served by more volatile, but potentially more rewarding, Isas.

Without that, any change is going to struggle to convince voters, I think. Or successfully unlock higher returns for anyone.

Now try this

I saw Mickey 17 at the cinema last night. I had a lovely time watching it, but it is ultimately a disposable genre flick that goes on far too long. The more I reflect on it, the more I think Danny Leigh’s lukewarm review is exactly right. Stay home and rewatch Parasite instead.

Speaking of the magic of in-person events, on May 1 I will be doing a Q&A at the FT’s London offices for students and recent graduates. I’ll chat a bit about my journey into journalism, and share some tips about how to turn your interests into a career. Sign up here.

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