Chancellor Rachel Reeves pre-launched various measures to boost investment ahead of her Mansion House speech on Tuesday night.
Alongside an earlier announcement from the Financial Conduct Authority tweaking the prospectus regime to make it cheaper for companies to list in London, Reeves gave a speech to finance industry leaders in her constituency city of Leeds.
The 'Leeds reforms' include a promise to make "drastic" cuts to "unnecessary financial red tape that stalls inward investment", as well as other moves to try and encourage investment among individual investors.
Banks will also be encouraged to "send investment opportunities" to savers who have cash sitting in low-interest accounts, and an advertising campaign will be launched to explain the benefits of investing as a reinvented update of the ‘Tell Sid’ campaign that was launched by the government when British Gas was privatised.
With support from the FCA and HM Treasury, the campaign will be run by the industry with banks Barclays, NatWest, HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group all signing up; along with investment platforms AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown, Interactive Investor, Vanguard, Freetrade, Octopus Money, Robinhood UK, Trading 212; wealth managers St James’s Place and Schroders; and the London Stock Exchange.
Although Reeves recently ruled out cutting the cash ISA limit, there was one change to the ISA regime, with Long Term Asset Funds (LTAFs), which are designed to better allow investment in private and illiquid assets, to be included in stocks and shares ISAs from next April.
To help businesses alongside the cutting of red tape, a new 'concierge service' within the Office for Investment will aim to "actively court international financial services companies, creating a one-stop-shop to promote the UK and provide tailored support to help businesses plan where to invest based on their needs".
Reeves also unveiled the government's first-ever financial services growth and competitiveness sector plan, a key plank of Labour's industrial strategy.
"We fixed the public finances and stabilised the economy. Now we need to double down on our global strengths to put the UK ahead in the global race for financial businesses," Reeves said.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at one of the companies supporting the campaign, Hargreaves Lansdown, not surprisingly liked the look of the reforms, saying they "will help build a more dynamic and equitable financial ecosystem" though she acknowledged that it was "not going to be easy to compete against the might of New York".
She says the planned retail investor campaign "will act as a loudspeaker and amplify the message about the opportunity investing can offer, to help build long-term financial resilience" as a "reinvented ‘Tell Sid’ campaign" to show how investment is helping people with retirement.
Changing ISA rules to allow LTAFs into more mainstream ISAs "will open up far more investment", she said.
"London has been facing an exodus of listed firms leaving for pastures new and the government wants to reverse the trend. Companies have long bemoaned the difficulties of raising money in a tangle of red tape, which this shake-up is designed to cut through."
Viktor Nebehaj, CEO and co-founder of Freetrade, another of the supporters of the retail investment campaign, said Reeves' recommendations "emphasise what we at Freetrade have championed all along: that investing should be accessible, transparent and built for the long run.
"By empowering retail savers—whether they're contributing to ISAs, pensions or simply starting small—this announcement underscores the value of patience, education, and broad participation in wealth-building."