Andy Moody, chief commercial officer at Leeds building society, said there would be “a significant detrimental impact on mortgage lending, including the thousands of first-time buyers we support every year, if the cash Isa rules were undermined”.
Britain’s biggest building society has waded into a row over whether the government should cut tax breaks on cash Isas, arguing such a move would reduce the availability of mortgages for first-time buyers.
Chris Irwin, director of savings at Yorkshire building society, said removing cash Isas as an option for savers would “have detrimental impacts on the financial wellbeing of many, along with increasing their tax liability”.
More than 18 million people have a cash Isa and there is almost £300bn sitting in them, but last week the new economic secretary to the Treasury, Emma Reynolds, appeared to take a pot shot at them when she asked a House of Lords committee: “Why do we have hundreds of billions of pounds in cash Isas?
Tom Riley, director of retail products at Nationwide building society, a leading provider of the tax-free accounts, said: “Cash Isas not only help ordinary people save efficiently but enable us to fund our first-time buyer lending.”.
