Andrew Griffith is Economic Secretary to the Treasury and MP for Arundel and South Downs.
Across the West, we live in an era in which societies are facing ageing populations and finite state budgets.
In that context, supporting private investors and savers helps to free up limited state resources to support those with fewer financial means. Reforms to financial services regulations, particularly now we have taken back control of our rule book, give the UK a unique opportunity to unlock investment and to do things differently.
We have a clear vision for Britain as an enterprise culture built on reward for risk, great access to capital, and smarter regulation. The current Financial Services and Markets Bill, approaching its final furlong in Parliament in the coming weeks, provides the architecture to do just that.
The Edinburgh Reforms that the Chancellor announced six months ago take that ambition even further, setting up the UK to be world’s most innovative, competitive, and open global financial centre. At the heart of this lies a new additional duty for regulators to promote growth and international competitiveness – recalibrating risk, although always in a balanced and sensible manner.
It’s part of the culture change we need: to be positive about taking risk, and to celebrate successful risk-takers when they sometimes become wealthy as a consequence.
There are those who reference 2008 and talk about the risks of reform. They should consider two things/
First, that the world has changed materially over the subsequent 15 years; 2008 was before the iPad, WhatsApp and Instagram. AI then was more likely to refer to Ai Wei Wei than to artificial intelligence.
Since then, the British people have chosen to rebalance their relationship with Brussels and the world has become ever more competitive. It is possible to learn valuable lessons from the past, without having to drive in the rear-view mirror.
The second is that failure to reform carries risk too: lower returns for investors, poorer incomes in retirement, and an economy that doesn’t get the investment it needs.
We should be aware that there is serious, party-political opposition to building a more enterprising economy. Only a few weeks ago in Parliament, I debated a score of Labour MPs who wanted to nationalise whole sectors, scrap trades union laws, tax whatever they deemed “excess” profits, cap food prices, and control rents.
The authors of this Now! That’s What I Call Socialism hits list would hold the balance of power in any future Labour government.
That fault line extends to financial services too. Not everyone shares our belief in the intrinsic moral virtue of markets. Not every party understands that the answer to every question can’t always be more rules and more regulators.
In contrast to those who would tell others what to do, there are huge benefits to having more individuals owning shares. Individual investors contribute both to the depth and breadth of markets, often in ways that index-hugging institutions do not. Individual investors also tend to have long-term investment horizons and hold their shares accordingly, stabilising markets in times of volatility.
As the responsible Minister, I therefore agree with those who say we need to make individuals owning shares sexy again.
Retail investing also fosters a greater understanding of business and investment in society and improves financial literacy. Perhaps if the north London ‘eco-activists’ gluing their hands to the roads knew what was in their trust funds, they might be a little more nuanced in their understand of the benefits of a growth economy.
Andrew Griffith is Economic Secretary to the Treasury and MP for Arundel and South Downs.
Across the West, we live in an era in which societies are facing ageing populations and finite state budgets.
In that context, supporting private investors and savers helps to free up limited state resources to support those with fewer financial means. Reforms to financial services regulations, particularly now we have taken back control of our rule book, give the UK a unique opportunity to unlock investment and to do things differently.
We have a clear vision for Britain as an enterprise culture built on reward for risk, great access to capital, and smarter regulation. The current Financial Services and Markets Bill, approaching its final furlong in Parliament in the coming weeks, provides the architecture to do just that.
The Edinburgh Reforms that the Chancellor announced six months ago take that ambition even further, setting up the UK to be world’s most innovative, competitive, and open global financial centre. At the heart of this lies a new additional duty for regulators to promote growth and international competitiveness – recalibrating risk, although always in a balanced and sensible manner.
It’s part of the culture change we need: to be positive about taking risk, and to celebrate successful risk-takers when they sometimes become wealthy as a consequence.
There are those who reference 2008 and talk about the risks of reform. They should consider two things/
First, that the world has changed materially over the subsequent 15 years; 2008 was before the iPad, WhatsApp and Instagram. AI then was more likely to refer to Ai Wei Wei than to artificial intelligence.
Since then, the British people have chosen to rebalance their relationship with Brussels and the world has become ever more competitive. It is possible to learn valuable lessons from the past, without having to drive in the rear-view mirror.
The second is that failure to reform carries risk too: lower returns for investors, poorer incomes in retirement, and an economy that doesn’t get the investment it needs.
We should be aware that there is serious, party-political opposition to building a more enterprising economy. Only a few weeks ago in Parliament, I debated a score of Labour MPs who wanted to nationalise whole sectors, scrap trades union laws, tax whatever they deemed “excess” profits, cap food prices, and control rents.
The authors of this Now! That’s What I Call Socialism hits list would hold the balance of power in any future Labour government.
That fault line extends to financial services too. Not everyone shares our belief in the intrinsic moral virtue of markets. Not every party understands that the answer to every question can’t always be more rules and more regulators.
In contrast to those who would tell others what to do, there are huge benefits to having more individuals owning shares. Individual investors contribute both to the depth and breadth of markets, often in ways that index-hugging institutions do not. Individual investors also tend to have long-term investment horizons and hold their shares accordingly, stabilising markets in times of volatility.
As the responsible Minister, I therefore agree with those who say we need to make individuals owning shares sexy again.
Retail investing also fosters a greater understanding of business and investment in society and improves financial literacy. Perhaps if the north London ‘eco-activists’ gluing their hands to the roads knew what was in their trust funds, they might be a little more nuanced in their understand of the benefits of a growth economy.