Report reveals Britain requires an additional $1.3 trillion investment to fuel economic growth

According to a report, Britain needs an extra one trillion pounds ($1.3 trillion) of investment over the next decade to achieve economic growth.

New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wanted the economy to achieve annual growth of 2.5 per cent when campaigning in the run-up to July 4’s election – a rate Britain has not regularly reached since before the 2008 financial crisis.

According to a report by the UK financial services lobby group Capital Markets Industry Taskforce, an annual growth rate of 3 per cent would necessitate an extra investment of 100 billion pounds a year over the coming decade, especially in energy, housing and venture capital.

The investment could come out of the six trillion pounds in long-term capital in Britain’s pensions and insurance sector, said Nigel Wilson, the report’s lead author and former boss of Legal & General, in a dialogue with Reuters.

“We’ve underinvested in the UK for such a long time, there’s a massive gap between the other G7 countries and ourselves,” he said.

“We have the long-term capital in the UK, it needs to be reallocated.”

The British economy needs an extra 50 billion pounds each year of energy investment as it aims to meet net zero targets, 30 billion pounds in housing, and 20-30 billion in venture capital, the report said.

The government should consider incentives to investments, such as reducing taxes on shares for retail investors, the report added.

UK pensions have a “significantly lower” allocation to domestic and unlisted equities compared to most developed market pension systems around the world, according to a separate report published on Friday by think tank New Financial.

UK pensions could as much as double their allocations and still be in line with the pensions industry in other advanced markets, the report said.

While attempting to increase UK pensions investment in domestic startups, the UK government has called for a review of Britain’s pension system.