Reeves urged to allow National Wealth Fund to issue bonds to unlock £100bn of private finance

NEF recommendations

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been urged to empower the National Wealth Fund (NWF) to issue its own bonds in order “to make a genuine impact on British industry”.

According to research from the New Economics Foundation (NEF), in addition to changing the fiscal regulations to remove the new NWF from the measure of debt targeted in the fiscal rules, allowing the wealth fund to issue green bonds on private markets could raise £14bn of private investment for every £1bn of Treasury funding.  In the Labour Party's manifesto, it committed to target a ratio of £3 of private funding for every £1 of government investment. Therefore, NEF assistant researcher Theo Harris said "allowing it to issue its own bonds is a policy lever that would allow it to achi...