Lifetime ISA should be scrapped, says influential group of MPs - MSE News

I completely disagree. I've paid into a workplace pension where my employer contributes too for 3 years now. I saw the Lifetime ISA as an added bonus, primarily to get a house with.

Sounds like jealousy politics.

I use my Lifetime ISA as saving for my first house, there are less limits than the Help To Buy which is restricted to £250 a month.

If they scrapped it, it would be a shame!

For anyone interested in reading the unfiltered version, the relevant section of the actual committee report is https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmtreasy/565/56508.htm#_idTextAnchor055

Perhaps worth noting that this is positioned within the retirement savings section, i.e. the recommendation to abolish is largely in the context of its long-term savings aspect - it does seem a fair criticism to me that using the same product to compete with both pensions and HTB ISA causes confusion.

UK Finance's input was that "has yet to prove popular with providers and has therefore seen limited take up by customers" which seems self-evident, certainly in the context of the cash product, although 170,000 apparently received LISA bonuses, but they also "encourage the Government to consider extending the Help to Buy", i.e. they don't want LISA to be abolished and leave first time buyers high and dry when HTB reaches its scheduled end date next year.

It appears that the committee's collective view was heavily influenced by Sir Steve Webb, Director of Policy and External Communications, Royal London, and former Minister of State for Pensions, who has strong opinions about it, so it'll be interesting to see what reaction the report gets from others in government....

I dislike pensions, as it is harder to access that money, in case of emergency. LISA is attractive in that sense, as one can access money by paying the penalty if one needs the money. And LISA makes sense if one already contributes the maximum percentage that is matched by the employer. As LISA charges are usually lower than work-place pension thus contributing more than is matched is more expensive into the pension. (including end-to-end taxation).

Lifetime ISA is highly flawed. Trying to use a single product that caters for first time buyers and for retirement planning is daft. it needs to change as it is overly complicated, has conflicting objectives and is too small in value to be offered by providers profitably. That is in part why you only tend to see it offered by loss making providers trying to gain market share (obvious exceptions to any generalisation).