Taking aim at government, UK’s Labour unveils national wealth fund plan

Britain’s Labour Party will unveil on Monday its plans to set up a national wealth fund to invest in green projects which will benefit the public, part of the opposition party’s answer to the Conservative government’s tax-cutting approach.

At their annual conference, Labour politicians are sensing a change in their fortunes after a punishing loss at a 2019 election, feeling they can now offer a real choice to voters after the government announced a “growth plan” that handed tax cuts mostly to big business and the wealthy.

The so-called mini-budget has opened up a divide between Prime Minister Liz Truss’s Conservatives and the Labour Party of Keir Starmer, who wants to use the years before an expected election in 2024 to prove his team is ready for power.

Rachel Reeves, Labour’s finance policy chief, will tell the conference in the northern English city of Liverpool the party wants to “build British industry” by using a national wealth fund similar to funds in Norway and Singapore, with an initial £8 billion (US$8.7 billion) earmarked for green projects.

“Because conference, when I say I want to buy, make and sell more in Britain I mean it,” she will say, according to excerpts of her speech.

“That is a real plan for growth,” she will say, taking aim at the “Growth Plan” presented by finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, when Labour accused him of prioritising the wealthy over working people struggling with rising prices by turning to the discredited theory of “trickle-down economics”.

That plan has shifted the government to the right, handing Labour a chance to prove that it could run the economy efficiently but also help those on lower incomes and protect public services, a source close to the leadership said.