Lucy Rigby used a speech at UK Private Capital in Paternoster Square on 10 September 2026 to restate the Treasury’s current offer to the private funds sector: ministers want more capital committed to UK companies, infrastructure and new technologies, and they want the UK to remain a leading place from which managers run those assets. The official transcript presents private capital as part of the government’s growth programme rather than a separate City policy track. (gov.uk) That opening matters because the speech was not presented as a one-off announcement. It was a stocktake on a line of policy that began with the Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy, launched at Mansion House on 15 July 2025, and it leaned on the UK’s position as the world’s second-largest asset management centre. (gov.uk)
Rigby said the current Treasury team remains committed to that strategy and pointed to work already under way on retail participation in capital markets, the industry-led Invest for the Future campaign, and improvements to the digital retail investment system. She also linked the programme to the Financial Services and Markets Bill, introduced in May 2026, which HM Treasury says will modernise regulation, reform the Financial Ombudsman Service and reduce the administrative burden of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime. (gov.uk) For policy readers, the key point is that the government is presenting financial services reform as a growth measure with legislation attached, not just a sequence of speeches. That gives firms a clearer route from ministerial intent to statutory change, even where final rules still depend on regulator consultation and parliamentary passage. (gov.uk)
A large share of the speech dealt with private markets regulation. Rigby highlighted HM Treasury’s draft Alternative Investment Fund Managers Regulations 2026, published on 14 July 2026, which seek to simplify the legislative regime while keeping consumer and market protections in place. HM Treasury’s policy note says most firms would move to more proportionate and streamlined requirements, with technical comments requested by 14 October 2026. (gov.uk) The Financial Conduct Authority is consulting in parallel on the UK AIFM regime and says the current rule set is complex because obligations are split across retained EU law, Treasury regulations and FCA rules. Its consultation says implementation of the new regime is currently envisaged for 2028. Rigby also referred to a separate package for venture capital fund managers, although the speech gave fewer operational details on that strand than on AIFM reform. (fca.org.uk)
Rigby did not present growth in private markets as risk-free. The speech noted stronger parliamentary and international attention on private credit, and that caution matches the May 2026 G7 finance ministers’ communiqué, which said developments in the private credit market, including links with banks and insurers, require continued monitoring. (gov.uk) The Bank of England’s private markets system-wide exploratory scenario gives that warning an institutional route. The Bank says the exercise is examining how banks, alternative asset managers and institutional investors might react to a severe downturn, with interim findings due during 2026 and a final report planned for early 2027. The exercise is explicitly system-wide and does not cover venture capital or commercial real estate, which is a useful reminder that the current official concern is concentrated in private equity-backed corporate finance and private credit. (bankofengland.co.uk)
On pensions, Rigby placed capital market reform alongside retirement policy. The speech linked current work to the Mansion House Accord and to the Pension Schemes Act 2026, with the argument that larger, better-governed schemes can invest over longer time horizons and give savers stronger value. The Department for Work and Pensions’ updated roadmap says the Act supports consolidation and scale across defined contribution and defined benefit pensions as part of a wider reform programme. (gov.uk) The Accord remains the clearest expression of that policy. Under the May 2025 agreement, 17 defined contribution providers pledged to place 10 per cent of relevant workplace pension portfolios into private markets by 2030, with at least 5 per cent earmarked for the UK. HM Treasury said at the time that this could mean around £50 billion of additional private market investment, of which about £25 billion would be directed to the UK. (gov.uk)
Rigby’s second pensions theme was adequacy, not just asset allocation. The second Pensions Commission’s interim report, published on 19 May 2026, says 40 per cent of working-age adults, around 15 million people, are on course to miss retirement adequacy benchmarks. The government page for that report says a final set of recommendations is planned for spring 2027. (gov.uk) This matters because the government’s pensions agenda is doing two jobs at once: trying to improve retirement outcomes and trying to increase the supply of long-term capital for the UK economy. The speech made that link directly, but it did not try to settle the harder trade-offs, which now sit with the Commission and the next phase of reform. (gov.uk)
AI was the other main forward-looking theme. Rigby repeated the Treasury line that AI should raise productivity across finance, while use remains consistent with consumer protection, operational resilience and trust in the system. That sits alongside the wider government ambition, stated in March 2026 and repeated around Mansion House 2026, for the UK to become the fastest adopter of AI in the G7. (gov.uk) The operational document here is the Financial Services AI Adoption Plan, published on 14 July 2026 by HM Treasury’s two AI champions for the sector, Harriet Rees and Dr Rohit Dhawan. HM Treasury says the plan contains ten recommendations covering the regulatory framework, AI-powered advice and the regulatory perimeter, resilience, skills and talent, and agentic payments, and that the government has accepted the recommendations addressed to it. (gov.uk)
Taken together, the speech suggests the government is trying to pair simpler market rules with closer scrutiny where household outcomes or financial stability may be affected. AIFM reform, pensions consolidation, consumer redress changes and AI adoption are being presented as parts of one Treasury programme rather than separate policy files. (gov.uk) For firms, the near-term dates now matter more than the rhetoric. Technical comments on the draft AIFM regulations are due by 14 October 2026; the FCA currently envisages a 2028 implementation point for the new AIFM regime; the Bank of England expects to publish final findings from its private markets exercise in early 2027; and the second Pensions Commission plans its final report in spring 2027. That timetable shows where the next substantive decisions are likely to appear. (gov.uk)