The Chief Executive of Lloyds Bank has compared Labour’s pension plans to policies used by communist China, saying new powers allowing Rachel Reeves to force pension funds to invest in Britain are like the capital controls used by Beijing. The Telegraph has more.

Charlie Nunn told the Financial Times: “Mandating allocations of pension funds is a form of capital control. I have spent 10 years of my working life in China and many jurisdictions where there are capital controls.

“That is a different model and that is a difficult slope for an economy that believes it is an open economy.”

The Chancellor has been pushing for fund managers to put more pension savings into UK ‘private assets’, such as venture capital and infrastructure, to boost investment into Britain and economic growth.

As part of this drive, the Treasury has said it will create a “backstop” power in new pensions legislation that will allow Ms Reeves to force pension funds to invest more in Britain if they fail to do so voluntarily.

Mr Nunn has warned that compelling fund managers to put pensioners’ savings into UK assets would “conflict” with their duty to seek the best returns.

Benoit Hudon, Chief Executive of Mercer UK, one of Britain’s leading pensions advisers, similarly warned in May that mandating fund managers put pensioners’ savings into unlisted UK assets could backfire.

He said at the time: “The ultimate result of a mandate may be lower returns for pensioners and poorer pensioners in the country – which goes completely against the fundamental objective of this proposal.”

Amanda Blanc, the boss of Aviva, has also raised concerns about the proposals. She said in May: “We think the red line is mandation. We do not believe that is a necessary strategy.”

Mr Nunn said Lloyds, Britain’s biggest retail bank, already had around £35 billion invested in UK assets.

Worth reading in full.