Mandates and abolishing alternatives won’t help British people benefit from investment opportunities in the private sector, says Mark Garnier

Tonight’s Mansion House dinner, with the speech from the Chancellor, will, we hope, finally bring an end to speculation about the future of cash ISAs. With over £400bn invested into cash ISAs, they provide a nest egg for that rainy day, a way of saving for a house deposit, for 18m savers.

Behind this speculation lies the government’s growth agenda. Slash the amount of money you can put into your cash ISA, they reason, and that money will be diverted into equity ISAs. Do that and the equity market rallies, encourage more IPOs, and thus more investment into the wider economy. It also, by the way, conveniently raises tax receipts from stamp duty on share transactions.

And it is not just cash ISAs that the government has had its eyes on. The

© City A.M.