EVENT: How Much Is Too Much? Why the Treasury View is Wrong, and Why We Must be Far More Ambitious about our National Debt

Tuesday 12th December, 9.00am-10.15am, Committee Room 10, House of Commons

  • John Penrose MP
  • Reaction from Lord Macpherson, former Permanent Secretary, HM Treasury

New City Agenda is delighted to invite you to:

How Much Is Too Much? Why the Treasury View is Wrong, and Why We Must be Far More Ambitious about our National Debt” with John Penrose MP and reaction from Lord Macpherson

To register please email dominic.lindley@newcityagenda.co.uk

John Penrose MP will outline how successive UK Governments, of all political persuasions, have become addicted to debt. We save less, invest less and build less economically-vital, growth-promoting infrastructure like roads, railways and ports than other countries.

He will challenge the ‘Treasury view’ which focuses too strongly on Government bonds, and not enough on much bigger long-term liabilities in pensions and benefits.

He will explain why the creation of a UK Sovereign Wealth Fund can help us pay what we owe, invest in the UK and drive economic growth in a post-Brexit Britain. He will clarify how the Sovereign Wealth Fund should be established and the rules which should govern its operation.

Reaction to the speech will be provided by Lord Macpherson, who was Permanent Secretary of the Treasury from 2005 to 2016, leading the department through the financial crisis and the subsequent period of banking reform and fiscal consolidation.

Lord Macpherson joined the Treasury in 1985, after training as an economist at Oxford University and University College, London, and working at the Confederation of British Industry and Peat Marwick Consulting. He is the Chairman of C. Hoare & Co., a Director of the Scottish American Investment Trust, a visiting Professor at King’s College, London, and a Trustee of the Royal Mint Museum.

John Penrose is the Conservative MP for Weston-Super-Mare. He is the author of the paper The Great Restructuring: A sovereign wealth fund to make the UK’s economy the strongest in the G20. Between 2005-10 he was PPS to Oliver Letwin and a shadow Business Minister. From 2010-2016 he was Tourism & Heritage Minister, a Government Whip and then Constitutional Affairs Minister. Before politics he trained at Cambridge University and Columbia University, then worked for J P Morgan, McKInsey and Pearson PLC before co-founding two software firms.