Maximising the Impact of the National Wealth Fund

This briefing from the Aldersgate Group calls on the UK government to take further steps to provide the National Wealth Fund (NWF) with greater financial firepower and improve coordination across the public financial institution landscape.

In the long term, it recommends that government empowers the NWF to borrow directly from capital markets to increase its capital pool and finance more ambitious and higher-risk projects. In the short term, it calls for clarification on the mandates and synergies between public finance bodies (such as the NWF, GB Energy, and the British Business Bank) to address financing gaps.

This should be supplemented by real economy policy to drive private investment and boost the UK’s public capital markets.

The briefing also sets out several considerations for the NWF ahead of the publication of its Strategic Plan. These include highlighting where lessons can be learned from the UKIB, outlining the Fund’s understanding of investment opportunities, and aligning financial products with pension and insurance requirements to unlock institutional investor capital.