Much ado about PuFins: How the UK’s public financial institutions can unlock billions for investment 20 July 2026 As Andy Burnham prepares to appoint his new Chancellor, the Resolution Foundation is publishing major new research today examining the role of the UK’s various public financial institutions (PuFins), and how they can be expanded to unlock billions of pounds’ worth of extra investment. The report is especially prescient given the new Prime Minister’s promise to deliver a high investment economy within the existing fiscal rules. Key findings from the report include: The Starmer Government expanded the balance sheet capacity of four PuFins – the British Business Bank, National Wealth Fund (NWF) , UK Export Finance and the newly created National Housing Bank – by over £100 billion, taking their total capacity to over £200 billion. But despite this expansion, the principal PuFin – the NWF – remains a much smaller investor than its predecessor, the European Investment Bank (EIB). It is expected to invest 70 per cent less than would be invested had the relative scale of the EIB’s pre-referendum operations applied over the next five years to 2030-31. This represents a cumulative real shortfall of £30 billion. To address this shortfall, the PM should expand financial transactions to scale up investment and boost growth. The capacity of the NWF should be ramped up to match the 0.27 per cent of GDP that the European Investment Bank invested pre-2016. This would boost its investment by £15.6 billion over half a decade (at a maximum direct cost of around £400 million in annual debt interest after three years). Elliott Christensen, Senior Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “For too long the UK has been living off its past and not investing in its future. The result is creaking infrastructure across the country, which is holding back economic growth. “The Starmer government took welcome steps to address this shortfall by changing the fiscal rules and expanding the balance sheets of Public Financial Institutions. The new Government should now ramp up their capacity, starting with a £16 billion boost to the National Wealth Fund. This will help the new Prime Minister in his mission to boost regional economic growth in all parts of the UK, while sticking to his predecessor’s fiscal rules.”
