I can come on to talk about suggestions that I think have some virtue, particularly employee share ownership schemes. As with everything, there is no perfect right or absolute wrong; there is a massive area of grey, and I will explore some of the nuances, on which I think we can perhaps find some agreement.
On the model of nationalisation I have heard certain individuals speak about at Momentum rallies, I think about the head of a nationalised utility company going to see the Chancellor to plead for more infrastructure investment funds, only to be told, “Get in the queue behind the NHS, welfare, policing and schools”—the long list of public spending priorities that come before something that is now funded privately and by institutional investors. Let us consider some facts. Since privatisation, water companies in England and Wales have spent about £150 billion on improvements to the water service. That is infrastructure that had been absolutely ignored by public expenditure before it was put into the private sector. The companies now spend about £8 billion a year continuing with those improvements.
When I was water Minister, I met institutional investors and saw that the regulated utility sector is an extremely popular place for people to invest, including for pension funds—the people who pay the pensions of people in the public sector. I welcome the fact that sovereign wealth funds and overseas investors want to invest in the United Kingdom. They do so because it is a stable and relatively low-yielding but relatively secure investment.