'Rachel Reeves' plan to force pension funds into UK assets won't work'

Hustling pension fund cash into British assets sounds like a good idea. It would be better to make Britain an attractive place to invest, says Matthew Lynn

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks during the Semafor World Economy Summit 2025
(Image credit: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

There will be targets, quotas and guidelines. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is planning to hustle the UK’s largest pension funds into investing more money in unquoted UK assets, with a new voluntary code expected to be unveiled over the next few weeks that could unlock tens of billions of pounds in extra cash for British industry.

The final version of the code – called the Mansion House Compact – will be revealed over the summer. It’s likely to stop short of setting any compulsory quotas for pension funds to invest a set percentage of their assets in the UK, an idea Reeves toyed with while she was in opposition.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.