25.03.21
On Thursday 25th March 2021 the Child Trust Fund Access campaign was debated for a third time in the House of Lords.
Lord Young of Cookham posed a question regarding an update on access to Child Trust Funds for those with learning disabilities, asking what the Government has done since the working group was announced in December. Watch the debate below:
Philip Warford, Managing Director at Renaissance Legal, said:
We’re pleased that pressure continues to be applied to the Government regarding the issue of access to Child Trust Funds for disabled children, but we remain very frustrated at the pace of progress.
It’s been 7 months since the first Child Trust Funds matured in September last year and there’s been a disappointing lack of progress in enabling thousands of disabled children and their families access to savings that were made for their futures. The impact Covid-19 has had on the Court of Protection is undeniable. We therefore have a situation where not only is the process of applying to the Court disproportionate in the vast majority of cases, but the delays we are seeing are severe. For those children over 18 with life-limiting conditions, the clock is against them and it may mean that they never see the money that was saved for them by their loving families.
In the House of Lords today, Lord Vaizey of Didcot said ‘in the absence of a legislative solution there must be a practical one’. When it comes to the former, those of us involved with the Child Trust Fund Access campaign have no intention of stopping our pursuit of a change in the law. Regarding the latter, any talks of a ’simpler process’ and a ‘review of the forms’ must now be backed up by firm dates. Disabled children and their families deserve transparency on this issue.
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