Merryn Somerset Webb

It just so happens that we've got a particularly good crop just at the moment.

The obstacles are partly financial and looking for ways of widening that pool of...

VC or PE, or indeed public listing of companies, smoothing the passage of that, I think is really important.

The engine of that, again, it's not a surprise to anyone, needs to be our own patient capital investors, pension funds, insurance companies, investing more in UK PLC.

We are the only pension fund on the planet

that does not have a home bias towards our own companies.

And that is ridiculous and that needs to change.

Would you mandate that change?

Sorry?

Would you mandate that change?

No, I wouldn't mandate it, but I would expedite our facilitation of that.

by, you know, that means looking at regulation, you know, is what used to be called SOMC-T, what's now called SOMC-UK, is that getting in the way of us putting those monies to work?

Is it the risk aversion of pension fund trustees?

that's getting in the way of putting those monies to work.

Can we provide more tax-efficient wrappers to enable people to put their money towards UK companies rather than overseas ones?

Oh, yes, we can do that.

We should do that.

I would work all of those channels, to be honest, because, as you know, this is many trillions of pounds

parked up in either overseas equities or in cash, none of which is starving UKPLC of the financial fuel it needs and all those kelts and thoroughbreds to grow into unicorns.

So part of this is financial and fixable because here's the irony.