(20 November 2024 – United Kingdom) UK Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds has not ruled out forcing pension schemes to increase their capital allocation to British assets if reforms fail to divert savings into domestic infrastructure and enterprises.
The government announced it would create a series of “mega funds” to steer more of the UK’s £1.3tn defined contribution (DC) and local authority pension industry into productive domestic finance. Mary McDougall and George Parker report for FT that a mere 4.4 percent of UK pensions are held in domestic equities, much lower than a ten percent global average.
In private markets, DC schemes allocate just two percent to unlisted British equities and infrastructure, rising to only ten percent for local government pension schemes.
“We are an outlier in terms of our own pension schemes. We’d like more UK pension investment into our own economy. Obviously on the master trust side they have fiduciary duty and on the contract side they have the consumer duty and all sorts of other requirements to make the best investment for their members – that will remain the case,” she said.
“I’m not an investment manager. I’m a politician. I’m not going to tell them how to invest. But we do want them to think about value over time rather than, you know, how much is this going to make this year.”