Mansion House Accord

Shaun Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

I always enjoy discussing these things with the right hon. Member, as we have done over recent months. He offers a recognition of the challenge facing the country, and in focusing on what we can do to start changing things, he takes a much better position than that adopted by his Front Benchers.

I recognise the right hon. Member’s point about risk-aversion. There is a need for more innovation in our pension landscape more generally—that is one of the areas in which I am glad to see progress. I take a slightly more positive view than he does on the consensus that things need to change. We are seeing that in the pensions industry more generally, partly in relation to investing in a wider range of assets, as well as in embracing the agenda that we are setting out for a smaller number of bigger pension funds that are able to take different kinds of risks.

The right hon. Member asks specifically about public equities. My view is that the accord from the industry today will support that by funding a pipeline of companies that can grow to the level at which they can list publicly. Also, private assets will include private shares, including the alternative investment market and others. I think the picture is slightly more positive than the one he paints, but I am not hiding from the wider question he raises about capital markets. The UK Government, the Chancellor and my colleague the City Minister are focused on that—he will have heard their words on ISA reform and the rest of it. I look forward to further conversations on that.

[Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)]

How will my hon. Friend bring together UK pension schemes and local and regional governments in order to invest in local infrastructure projects, given that European and global pension schemes invest when UK pensions schemes too often do not?

[Torsten Bell]

My hon. Friend asks a great and important question. We will have more to say on this in the months ahead as we come forward with the final report of the pensions investment review and the pension schemes Bill. Some local government pension schemes have a track record of investing locally, but we need to see that at scale, and we need to see it crowding in private investment, including perhaps from private pension funds. That is exactly what our package of reforms, combined with the industry’s work with the accord today, will help us to deliver. He is absolutely right to push us on that, as I am sure he will continue to do in the months ahead given his record in previous roles. We want higher investment levels, not just in some parts but in all parts of the country.