Unions, thinktanks, environmental groups and charities have joined forces to ask ministers to give the national wealth fund (NWF) more financial firepower, so it can invest more in Britain and help rebalance the economy.
According to a statement from organisations including the TUC, Greenpeace, WWF and the New Economics Foundation, scaling up the NWF could lead to lower energy bills, the revitalisation of the UK's industrial heartlands and more high-quality jobs.
The statement calls on the government to overhaul the NWF into a "world-leading national development bank capable of delivering the investment Britain needs", while insisting this would be consistent with the government's existing fiscal rules.
The NWF was launched in July 2024 by the then chancellor, Rachel Reeves, with the aim of attracting billions of pounds of private sector money for large infrastructure projects. It was a manifesto promise and aimed to attract a mix of investment, with roughly £3 of private funds sought for every £1 of taxpayer cash in schemes such as ports, gigafactories, and hydrogen and steel projects.
The NWF is not a sovereign wealth fund like those owned by Norway and Saudi Arabia, which manage cash generated by the government through state-owned natural sources such as oil, and surpluses from international trade, bank reserves or privatisation projects. Instead, it is designed to boost investment in key industries while giving investors the confidence to park money in the UK by showing the government is willing to share the financial risk of large infrastructure projects.
The call to expand its scope comes just before the Labour party gathers for its first conference since Andy Burnham became prime minister, and as John Healey draws up his first budget as chancellor, scheduled for 28 October.
The group's statement praises the "important role" played by the NWF in "steering private investment to support clean energy, modern infrastructure and regional growth – for example, through its £500m partnership with the Manchester Good Growth Fund". However, it calls on such public banks to do more, comparing the £5.5bn available for the NWF to invest each year for the next five years with the €62bn (£53.5bn) lent by Germany's public investment bank KfW to households, businesses and municipalities in 2025 alone, almost 10 times higher.
The statement lays out several ways a scaled-up NWF could benefit Britain, including turbo
