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Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I cannot say what the Chancellor is going to say at her Mansion House speech now, otherwise there would not be much point in her giving her Mansion House speech then. She will publish a 10-year strategy for financial services at that point, and I am sure the noble Lord will enjoy reading it.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, reference has been made to the Science and Technology Committee of your Lordships’ House, of which I am a member. It is investigating the crucial question of how we can scale up companies in Britain. I ask my noble friend the Minister what he hopes the effect of the Mansion House accords and reforms will be on trying to, for example, get more of our pension funds in this country to invest in British-based science and technology companies, because that will be crucial for the future of growth.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question, and I pay tribute to his expertise in this area; I know it is something he is deeply passionate about. He speaks about the importance of scale-up in this country. For many years, we have been very good at start-up, but much less good at scale-up. That is something we are seeking to do. As I have already mentioned, the reforms and increased capital for the British Business Bank will be crucial to that. Throughout our work to develop the industrial strategies, we have seen that access to finance has been a central challenge for many companies. He talks about our pension reforms and the Mansion House compact. Those reforms aim to generate up to £50 billion of additional capital to help companies to start to scale up and for crucial funding at that stage of their life.