Here is how Ian Hogarth sums up his argument in the (Sunday) Times.

Overall, Britain needs to toughen up, fight its own corner, and be less naive in its dealings with inward investors and rival tech hubs. “The biggest risk is we like to pretend tech is this big happy positive sum game where there is no competition,” Hogarth says. “In practice we are competing. If our most incredible founders can’t raise the capital they need, can’t find the talent they need, can’t get the regulation that they need to scale, then they will move to the US.”

Hogarth makes it clear that we have a trillion pound company that we started and which still sits within our shores but it is owned by America.

Many observers of Britain’s technology scene rue losing DeepMind to Google in 2014. Its capable founders had ambitious plans and could not find anyone in Britain who had the vision and cash to help them make them happen. They sold for £400 million when a cheque from the government or a smart domestic investor could have seen DeepMind become Britain’s OpenAI — the latter, set up in 2015, was valued at $500 billion last year.

Which begs the question, what can we – in pensions do – to make sure that we do to back “patriotic winners”?

I will give three reasons to be cheerful (1-2-3)

1.

The first is the saving of the Stagecoach PLC pension scheme which could have been insured, most probably with American ownership of the insurer. It wasn’t; it was transferred to the sponsorship of Aberdeen Group PLC who not only have responsibility for paying bus people’s pension, but the task of investing the money in Stagecoach’s Pension Fund. I

know enough about Aberdeen and Stagecoach’s pension to expect to see money invested for the future (rather than just sitting in corporate bonds). May this deal be the start of more, so that what is left of our closed private DB pension schemes can look more like open DB funded schemes like USS and LGPS.

2.

The second is the impact of the Pension Schemes Bill on DC plans. The workplace DC plans we have the other side of 2030 will be at least £10bn in size and in less than 10 years more than £25bn. They will not be restricted to passive management but doing what Nest and People’s and others are doing and investing for larger and longer.  I do not see competition in years to come being from a race to the bottom on charges, instead competition to pay better pensions, larger and growing faster because they are invested in the kind of long-term assets that DB schemes like USS and LGPS (and Stagecoach) invest in.

3.

The third and most exciting is the CDC UMES scheme, whether for the whole of our lives (starting 2026) or from retirement (2028) we are looking at the kind of pension investors who have the life cycle of a collective scheme.

Because it has a sweet spot so long as it takes contributions and pays pensions, CDC is able to invest rather than selling assets to shorten time horizons (there is no end game).

There are reasons to be cheerful – they are 1-2 and 3. Three reasons to invest in our great patriotic future through our pension schemes which we fund through work and live on when we end our work. We have an infinite life cycle for our pensions and so should Britain, it is the place we will live and die and the place our children and their children will do the same.

You want to be cheerful – don’t you!