Gareth Davies

The National Wealth Fund (NWF) and formerly the UK Infrastructure Bank, actively engages with various stakeholders to enhance the effectiveness and impact of its deals and local authority advisory services. By collaborating with a variety of stakeholders, the NWF ensures that its initiatives are well-informed and supported. This engagement is done through a variety of methods, including bilateral meetings, publications, consultations, and external events (including those hosted by the NWF). The mission of the NWF requires it to support rather than compete with the market and as such, they seek to engage openly with stakeholders.

More information about the engagement NWF undertakes with its stakeholders is set out on pages 73 to 75 of the Annual Report and Accounts National Wealth Fund Limited Annual report and accounts 2023-2024

The most important constraint on the National Wealth Fund’s risk appetite is its economic capital risk budget, which limits the total risk exposure it can hold. The UK Infrastructure Bank had £22 billion of notional financial capacity and an economic risk capital budget of £4.5 billion. This was set by HM Treasury when UKIB was established. As part of UKIB's transformation into the National Wealth Fund, HM Treasury will agree a larger amount of economic risk capital, the details of which will be published in due course.

The National Wealth Fund (NWF) are currently revising their risk management framework to reflect changes made from the UK Infrastructure Bank’s strategic objectives, economic capital and risk appetite. A revised version will be published on the NWF website in due course.

The Chancellor announced at the International Investment Summit on 14^th October 2024 that the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) would be transformed into the National Wealth Fund (NWF), building on UKIB’s expertise and leadership. To empower the NWF to maximise mobilisation of private investment, the Chancellor committed to expanding the suite of financial instruments available to the NWF over time. Legislation enabling the NWF to issue the first of these new instruments, performance guarantees, will be laid for consideration by Parliament in this Financial Year.

The NWF is also collaborating with Government departments on new blended finance solutions which take on additional risk, crowd in private capital and support the most effective and catalytic use of public funds.

The Government is committed to ensuring that older people are able to live with the dignity and respect they deserve, and the State Pension is the foundation of state support for older people. The Government is committed to the Triple Lock for the duration of this parliament, and in April 2025, the basic and new State Pension will increase by 4.1%. This means that pensioners on a full new State Pension will get a boost of £470 to their incomes from April this year. Over the course of this Parliament, the yearly amount of the full new State Pension is currently forecast to go up by around £1,900, based on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest forecast.

The previous Government made the decision to freeze the income tax Personal Allowance at its current level of £12,570 until April 2028. At our first Budget, we decided not to extend the freeze on personal tax thresholds, meaning they will rise with inflation from April 2028.

The Government is fully committed to the transition to electric vehicles. At Autumn Budget 2024, the Government announced £2.3bn of funding for the automotive sector up to 2030 to support the transition to Zero Emission Vehicles. The Government also announced £120m of funding in 2025-26 to support the purchase of new electric vans via the plug-in vehicle grant and to support the manufacture of wheelchair accessible ZEV vehicles.

The Government also provides favourable taxation rates. At Autumn Budget the Government announced new Company Car Tax rates for 2028-29 and 2029-30 which will maintain generous incentives to support electric vehicle take-up.

More widely, HMG provides a range of measures to support people to transition to Zero Emission Vehicles. For instance, over £200 million for 2025-26 was announced at Budget to accelerate EV chargepoint rollout, including funding to support local authorities to install on-street chargepoints across England.

The Government published the Corporate Tax Roadmap at Autumn Budget 2024. This Roadmap confirms the major features of the Corporation Tax regime for the duration of this Parliament. The Roadmap reflects the particular importance of Corporation Tax to significant business investment decisions. It also reflects the high appetite for policy stability on Corporation Tax following the considerable changes of approach in recent years.

Raising the revenue required to fund public services and restore economic stability meant the Government has had to take difficult decisions on tax, which is why we asked employers to contribute more. The Government recognises the need to protect the smallest employers which is why we have more than doubled the Employment Allowance to £10,500, meaning more than half of businesses with NICs liabilities either gain or see no change next year. Businesses will still be able to claim employer NICs reliefs including those for under 21s and under 25 apprentices, where eligible.

The National Wealth Fund (NWF) is the UK’s impact investor, mobilising billions of pounds of investment in the UK’s world-leading clean energy and growth industries. The British Business Bank (BBB) continues to be responsible for improving access to finance for SMEs, including new programmes to channel venture investment into the UK’s fastest growing, most innovative companies and closing the scaleup capital gap.

The NWF and the BBB work in close partnership to deliver the government’s industrial strategy in line with their respective mandates, maintaining a coordinated and complementary approach to tackling finance gaps and boosting economic growth. The government will continue to review how these institutions operate and interact with the market, government departments and each other to ensure that they are as effective as possible in mobilising private investment and delivering economic growth.

The Chancellor announced at the International Investment Summit on 14th October 2024 that the UK Infrastructure Bank would be transformed into the National Wealth Fund (NWF), This change took effect on that day. All UKIB staff were retained as part of the NWF.

To realise its ambition to catalyse more private investment and accelerate investable projects coming to market across the UK, the NWF will be expanding its team based at its headquarters in Leeds.

The number of roles at the NWF will be published in the “Staff Report” within the NWF’s Annual Report of Accounts, published following the end of this financial year.

The Chancellor announced at the International Investment Summit on 14th October 2024 that the UK Infrastructure Bank would be transformed into the National Wealth Fund (NWF), This change took effect on that day. All UKIB staff were retained as part of the NWF.

To realise its ambition to catalyse more private investment and accelerate investable projects coming to market across the UK, the NWF will be expanding its team based at its headquarters in Leeds.

The number of roles at the NWF will be published in the “Staff Report” within the NWF’s Annual Report of Accounts, published following the end of this financial year.

The Chancellor announced at the International Investment Summit on 14th October 2024 that the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) would be transformed into the National Wealth Fund (NWF), building on UKIB’s expertise and leadership to go further to catalyse more private investment.

Processes relating to the rebranding to the NWF were managed and carried out by the NWF and were conducted within the NWF’s existing departmental budgets.

The Department holds subscriptions to the following news services:

• Dow Jones Factiva
• Times
• Telegraph
• The Independent
• The Guardian
• The Sun
• Daily Express
• Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday + Daily Mail Plus
• Daily Mirror
• Daily Star
• Financial Times
• PoliticsHome
• Bloomberg Online
• Bloomberg Tax Online
• The Economist
• The Spectator
• New Statesman
• Reuters
• Yorkshire Post
• Press Association Mediapoint
• Cision (press cuttings company)

The government is committed to maintaining an open and constructive dialogue with the oil and gas sector to support our energy security and ensure the sector plays its role in our clean energy ambitions.

In line with this I will chair the next Oil and Gas Fiscal Forum in the first quarter of next year. The date and location of the forum has not yet been confirmed.

The published operational costs represent a high-level cost estimate for the changes required to HMRC IT systems to deliver this policy change which follow a recognised standard methodology. HMRC do not provide detailed costs related to policy changes.

Separately, the revenue impacts of the changes to the rates of Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on carried interest from 6 April 2025 are included in the costings published in the main Autumn Budget 2024 document.

The CGT changes are the first step of a reform package that will put the tax treatment of carried interest on a fairer and sustainable footing, while preserving the competitiveness of the UK as a fund management fund. From 6 April 2026, the carried interest tax regime will move fully across to the Income Tax framework; this will be legislated in a future Finance Bill, which the House will have the opportunity to consider.

The Government has published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief. In addition to the information highlighted in the Answer of 18 November 2024 to Question 13623 on Agriculture: Inheritance Tax, the Chancellor of the Exchequer provided further data in her recent letter to the Chair of the Treasury Select Committee. The letter is available at committees.parliament.uk/publications/45691/documents/226235/default/.

The Government has held meetings with a range of stakeholders, including the Tenant Farmers Association.

The costing methodology for reforming agricultural property relief and business property relief from 6 April 2026 by maintaining 100% relief for the first £1m of combined assets and 50% relief thereafter, and 50% relief for “not listed” shares on the markets of a recognised stock exchange is published in the Autumn Budget 2024 Policy Costing Document on page 41:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6721d2c54da1c0d41942a8d2/Policy_Costing_Document_-_Autumn_Budget_2024.pdf.

I can confirm that (a) non-residential agricultural buildings, (b) farm vehicles, (c) farm tools, (d) livestock and (e) chemicals and fertiliser stock are all included in the valuation of the agricultural and business assets of an estate.

The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms, and further explanatory information at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/what-are-the-changes-to-agricultural-property-relief. Around 500 estates across the UK are expected to be affected each year from 2026-27.

In accordance with standard practice, a tax information and impact note will be published alongside the draft legislation before the relevant Finance Bill.

The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms, and further explanatory information at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/what-are-the-changes-to-agricultural-property-relief. Around 500 estates across the UK are expected to be affected each year from 2026-27.

In accordance with standard practice, a tax information and impact note will be published alongside the draft legislation before the relevant Finance Bill.