Britain’s shock decision to leave the EU will have no impact on the government’s plan to introduce the Lifetime Isa (Lisa) next April, a senior policy adviser at HM Customs & Revenue has said.
Speaking at Tisa’s Lifetime Isa Conference in London this week, Paul Cottis reassured the industry that Brexit would not derail the new Isa, saying the regulatory framework was on track to be announced in “early autumn”.
While he said HMRC could not release policy details yet, he said it was business as usual.
He said: “Whatever happened last week doesn’t matter – we’re going on, we move on. There’ll be no change to the policy.”
Mr Cottis shared the stage with HM Treasury policy adviser Rosie Neilson.
When asked what would happen to the Lisa if, as a result of the current political uncertainty, a Labour government was elected before April, she said she was not “privy to the internal opinions of different politicians in different parties”.
She added: “The fact that we’ve seen a lot of excitement and appetite and interest from the industry and also from consumers about this product means that regardless of what’s going on in the political space and the events of this week, the business of government is absolutely as usual, and this is something we are going to launch in April next year.”
