# Changes to the cash ISA allowance won’t turn savers into investors

By Sarah Coles — 2025-10-27

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Savings is the right home for money people may need to access in the next five years, so a cut to the allowance could see diligent savers being punished with tax bills on their savings.

“For money they don’t need until the longer term, investments are a sensible option, but changes to the cash ISA allowance won’t turn savers into investors.

“It is not the cash ISA that’s the barrier to investing, it’s confidence. It’s understanding when the right time is to take risk.

“The work the government is doing to build an investment culture is the key to giving people the confidence to make the most of the power of investment.

“It’s the carrot that’s going to be effective here: not the stick.

“The work the Building Societies’ Association has done shows that savings can act as a gateway to investing.

“It’s certainly something we see with our clients, so they begin by opening a cash ISA, and as they build their understanding of investments, they transfer this money into a stocks and shares ISA.

“It’s another reason why maintaining the cash ISA limit is so important, because it gives people the opportunity to build meaningful cash savings that can be easily transferred into a stocks and shares ISA when they are ready.

“The current system makes this straightforward, because there’s flexibility over transfers, so it’s easy to move from cash to stocks and shares and back again.

“If the government wants to make any changes, it needs to be sure that it doesn’t remove this simplicity and inadvertently make the journey into investment more complicated.”

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