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The IPPR thinktank are hopeful that combining the UK’s 86 separate Local Government pension schemes into a single pot will help drive investment.

Dr George Dibb, associate director for economic policy at IPPR, says:

“With the lowest levels of investment in the G7—and among the lowest in the developed world—the UK has languished at the bottom of the league for 24 of the past 30 years. These pension fund reforms should help to end that.

“Consolidating pension pots into ‘megafunds’ will unlock substantial capital for UK investment, enabling more high-impact, high-return ventures. Paired with a comprehensive industrial strategy and the highest levels of public investment since the 1970s, these reforms will help shift the UK economy toward sustained investment and growth.”

“This is not the case in the private pension market, where the number and size of failed pension funds now in the Pension Protection Fund illustrates how hard it is to get investments sufficiently right to pay the pensions promised.”

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