Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
I thank my noble Lord for that question. I think I will leave off there; obviously, we have the Budget in three and a half weeks’ time and other announcements will be made then. We want to make this a success for the public, and that is why from next April we are going to open up stocks and shares ISAs to long-term asset funds so that everybody can benefit.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, there is a shortage of capital for public projects, so permitting the public to provide some more of that capital is very sensible. The recently opened Thames Tideway tunnel is a very good example of a public/private partnership: it was on time and on budget with a good independent board. However, the shareholders were companies such as Dalmore Capital UK and foreign investors, and not individuals. Will the Government work up ideas drawing on this and on overseas success to allow us to attract more public finance from a larger number of corporate and individual UK shareholders? Might that include the type of populist share sales beloved of Baroness Margaret Thatcher?
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
I was agreeing with some of that until it got to the very end. I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Obviously, we need to look at this closely. We want to open up public/private partnerships, where they are to happen, to investment from consumers and shareholders, but we need to wait until the Budget to find out exactly what is going to be done.