‘The oldest matured Child Trust Fund accounts are now more than six years old and some young people may not know they have savings waiting for them.’

Rt. Hon. Lucy Rigby KC MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury

There’s a curious thing about this Labour Government that I don't understand, and I hope Chancellor John Healey will resolve it in the forthcoming Budget. When they speak of current tax and spend, they're all for putting pressure on the wealthy in order to justify spending on those who are not, as you would expect. But when it comes to their policy about releasing the money held in matured Child Trust Funds to benefit the most disadvantaged, they hold back from taking action, while celebrating the fact that the wealthier are ‘Quids in’ in claiming their funds.

The Economic Secretary issued a press release on 23rd September with the title, ‘Almost 3 million young adults are ‘quids in’ after claiming Child Trust Fund’. It stated that nearly three million matured Child Trust Funds have been claimed thus far, while recognising that 827,000 accounts remained unclaimed as at 5th April 2026; representing an overall unclaimed rate of 21.83%.

There was no breakdown to show how these figures applied to HMRC-allocated accounts: these are the 28.4% of all accounts (rising to 32% in the north of England) which were opened by the Inland Revenue because no action had been taken by the family by the child's first birthday. The proportion of low-income recipients in this segment is 70% higher than for family-opened accounts.

However, The Share Foundation — whose annual report was published last week — has reliable information that the proportion of unclaimed HMRC-allocated matured accounts is c. 45%, four times higher than for family-opened accounts — and this is logical, as so many of their young owners still remain unaware of the funds sitting in their name.

And that 827,000 is also somewhat of an understatement. It doesn't include accounts unilaterally transferred into Junior ISAs by account providers; when these, and the impact of another six months of maturities, are taken into account, the actual total of unclaimed matured Child Trust Funds is very close to one million, worth over £2 billion — £1.2 billion of which belongs to low-income young adults.

The Share Foundation’s analysis of the state of unclaimed matured Child Trust Funds following HM Treasury's statistics press release shows that it is essential for the Chancellor to announce implementation of the ‘Automatic Release at 21’ process for HMRC-allocated accounts in the October Budget. The charity has made a strong submission to HM Treasury, based on their 15th July event in the Attlee Suite, Portcullis House in Westminster. This was supported by a large number of young people who have found their accounts through The Share Foundation’s https://findCTF.sharefound.org  search facility, which has so far linked over 145,000 applicants to their accounts worth £335 million.

However, HM Treasury’s CTF Taskforce is still working on getting letters out in 2027 to the substantial number of young adults with unclaimed accounts; a new FCA review of account providers could also help with this. The Share Foundation is very concerned that this will not result in resolving the problem for low-income young people; they would therefore appreciate all that can be done to persuade John Healey and his team at HM Treasury to take action on the huge number of unclaimed HMRC-allocated accounts, where the Government has a duty to act, both as ‘Settlor’ and to avoid further disadvantaging the disadvantaged.

All this denial of money to low-income young adults, notwithstanding the fact that there is no cost to Government, stands in sharp contrast to pressure being exerted on the wealthy and, at the same time, celebrating their children's receipt of family-opened CTF monies.

The Times on Saturday 26 September spoke of the potential for a raid on capital gains which ‘will wreck investor confidence’, and an article directly above it reported that nine of the ten areas that would be hit hardest by an expanded ‘mansion’ tax (if it were defined by a £1.5 million value threshold), have Labour MPs.

Then, in their Business News on page 52, they quoted Peter Hargreaves, the co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, as saying that ‘billionaires are leaving the country and the UK is finished’. He told the Financial Times, ‘This country is never, ever coming back, it's finished. There are so many people on the public purse that it would be very difficult for any government to change that. Not only are businessmen being taxed more … businesses that employ a lot of people have been hit massively with the increase to national insurance and, of course, minimum wage’.

All this, together with the heavy warnings over uncontrolled public sector debt at the United Nations last week, confirms what we have been saying for years: that the era of universal welfare must be brought to a close, and the Government needs to state clearly that support in future will be targeted for those most in need, rather than being ‘free at the point of use’. Andy Burnham — please take note regarding any new social care proposals.

And, returning to the theme of starter capital accounts such as the Child Trust Fund, we must hope that the Chancellor will also finally confirm that the necessary regulation and logistics will be put in place to enable a philanthropically-funded CTF Mark 2 targeted only for low-income young people, and embracing both ‘earn-as-you-learn’ incentivised learning and automatic release at 21. Both of these recommendations were included in The Share Foundation’s letter to members of both houses of parliament which accompanies its 2026 annual report.  

Gavin Oldham OBE

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