“In the Mais lecture, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves recognised that unlocking private investment requires institutional reform to encourage UK financial companies to invest in productive assets domestically,” Casali continued. “This will be crucial, as the scrapping of the dividend tax credit by Chancellor Gordon Brown in 1997 led to the share of UK equities owned by pension and insurance companies to fall from around 46 per cent to just 4 per cent currently.” 

“Only time will tell if Labour’s policies succeed in lifting the economy’s growth rate. However, given the poor state of the UK government’s finances and subdued productivity, it will be a hard task for the next government to achieve,” Casali concluded.