Pension Scheme Investment 2023-11-14
2023-11-14
TAGS
Response quality
Questions & Answers
Q1
Direct Answer
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Context
The MP is concerned about the level of investment by pension funds in UK businesses.
What steps his Department is taking to encourage pension schemes to invest in the United Kingdom?
In my speech at Mansion House in July, I announced reforms to boost pensions, increase investment in UK businesses, and improve UK capital market competitiveness. Those reforms could result in over £1,000 a year of additional retirement income and unlock £75 billion-worth of investment in high-growth businesses.
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Assessment & feedback
Response accuracy
Q2
Direct Answer
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Context
The MP notes that local authorities are giving investment managers for their pension funds a mandate to invest in infrastructure.
Many local authorities have given the investment managers for their pension funds a mandate to invest in infrastructure. What plans does my right hon. Friend have to encourage greater infrastructure investment by UK public sector pension funds?
Working with the former Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), we announced major reforms in July to help local government pension funds lead the way in the transformation we are looking for, in particular by sending a direction that they should invest in pools worth more than £50 billion.
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Assessment & feedback
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Q3
Partial Answer
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The MP welcomes the proposals made by the Chancellor in his Mansion House speech, which will increase investment in the United Kingdom.
I welcome the proposals that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made in his Mansion House speech, which will increase investment in the United Kingdom. In his upcoming autumn statement, I implore him to build on his Budget announcement with a policy that was originally advocated for in a paper by the Adam Smith Institute, as set out in my entry in the Register of Members' Financial Interests. I implore him to make full expensing permanent and to scrap the hated factory tax.
I was very proud in the spring Budget to introduce full expensing for three years, which gives us some of the most competitive business taxes in the OECD. Only five other countries do that, and I will of course keep under review any possibility to extend that tax break.
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Assessment & feedback
The possibility of scrapping the factory tax was not addressed
Response accuracy
Q4
Partial Answer
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Context
The MP questions why the UK has a £137 billion deficit while independent Ireland has a €10 billion surplus.
Is investment not needed in the UK given that 13 years of Tory rule have resulted in a £137 billion UK deficit? Meanwhile independent Ireland has a €10 billion surplus from its economic growth and investment. That is an Ireland without the oil or natural resources of Scotland, which is now about to start a sovereign wealth fund. Where did the failing crisis-hit UK go wrong and independent Ireland go right?
I find that a very curious question. If the hon. Member is proud of Scotland's natural resources, why does he want to cancel North sea oil and gas exploration, which is the very thing that can give families across the United Kingdom security from the energy shocks we have seen from things such as the invasion of Ukraine?
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Assessment & feedback
The questioner's point about economic performance was not addressed
Response accuracy
Q5
Partial Answer
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Context
The MP notes that the Pension Insurance Corporation has announced it is going to invest in helping to support the building of 1,200 new affordable homes.
There is encouraging news in that the Pension Insurance Corporation has recently announced that it is going to invest in helping to support the building of 1,200 new affordable homes in this city. Does the Chancellor agree that pension funds could be a very important source of capital for developing social rented housing around the country—Eden Housing Association, South Lakes Housing, and Westmorland and Furness Council, for example? Will he look at the rules and bring in greater incentives for pension investment funds to invest in affordable housing across the country?
We are already working on proposals in that very area. Broadly speaking, we have one of the most robust and resilient pension fund sectors in the world, but we are doing a lot of work to remove the barriers to investing back into the UK. Things such as affordable housing, infrastructure and our growth businesses are areas of great potential.
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Assessment & feedback
The specific incentives were not detailed
Response accuracy