Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I too wish the Minister a happy birthday, and I declare my interests. Does the Minister recognise the damage caused to UK growth by pension funds? We have the second largest pension system in the world according to the Government, the Exchequer gross contribution is £70 billion a year, and our DB and DC schemes are no longer backing Britain and are selling or underweighting UK equities and risk assets, damaging investments and corporate financing costs. DB pension funds bulk buying annuities is driving up long-term gilt yields, which many noble Lords have mentioned, as the insurer sells the gilts they tell the pension funds to buy as soon as they take over the assets, competing with the Bank of England’s QT sales. Our economy is desperate for long-term investment. Our brilliant companies are being snapped up on the cheap by foreign owners or private equity. I believe in Britain, and the Government seem to have a clear opportunity to require pension funds, if they wish to receive these generous taxpayer subsidies, to put, say, at least 25% of their new contributions into British assets to reverse the doom loop that pension funds have created for our markets and restore some growth.