Pension funds to contribute £20bn to infrastructure?

The Chancellor George Osborne suggested pension funds could be used to inject between £15 billion and £20 billion into the nation’s infrastructure in his recent autumn statement.

In a deal agreed by UK Pension Funds, it is expected that the move would not only rejuvenate the construction sector, but would also offer good returns to those pension funds invested in the project.

Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) Joanne Seagus suggested it was not yet confirmed how much pension funds would contribute to infrastructure.

She told BBC On The Money: “What we’ve agreed with the Treasury and with the pensions protection fund is to find a memorandum of understanding to develop a new infrastructure platform to support increased investments in infrastructure by pension funds.”

Ms Seagus added that all interested parties now need to sit down with the government to decide what the platform would look like before they could know how much pension funds will put into it.

Posted by David Shuker