Michael Moore’s Outlook: Why UK-based capital needs to get to work

Well, that was a summer. Five heatwaves and counting in the UK, cities (or the people in them) barely coping. Hillsides and woods ablaze. El Nino exacerbated the heat for sure. But it was ably assisted by the year on year changes in our climate. And so, unlike previous hot periods, it seems unlikely we will be able to write this off as an aberration.

Meanwhile, it’s not just the number of abnormal hot weeks we have lost count of. I have now given up tracking the ceasefires, negotiations and failed deals we have witnessed in the Gulf. Or the ongoing intractability of the Ukraine war. All of which translates into almost permanent energy price volatility.

Policymakers remain in a bind. And politics is conflicted as a result. So we have debates about energy mix, energy security and environmental sustainability which pass each other by at 40,000 feet or clash at a much baser level.

What to do? Something has to give.

There’s nothing like personal experience to sharpen up the realities. Ignore the first world problem I have, like millions of others, of staying in a London property which is built to retain, not expel heat. Momentarily take yourself to the Highlands of Scotland, to Aviemore.

A few weeks ago amidst the breathtaking beauty I had one of the more incongruous sets of experiences I can remember. Visiting the Highland Wildlife Park I marvelled at the polar bears and snow leopards, who ought to be (and normally would be) living there in a climate suited to their needs (even in summer).

And yet that night I was wakened twice by helicopters overhead whose crews were tracking a Cairngorm mountain wildfire which had led to the evacuation of a nearby village. Happily, the fires were kept at bay, but countless recent examples of this fire madness, many with less happy outcomes, are sadly available.

So, back to the policy bind. To drill or not to drill? To subsidise energy or not to subsidise? To invest or not to invest?

Those first two conundrums I will leave others to get vexed about. Though it would be nice to know the answers. But thinking investment, are things any less troubling?

It’s not as if there is a lack of investment need for both the transformative technologies and the adaptation that the whole economy requires.

Which creates a puzzle. This is one of many scientific areas where Britain can boast an abundance of academic institutions which are amongst the highest ranked in the world. But the amount invested here is bumping along at somewhere between £6bn and £12bn a year, according to Cleantech for UK.

There is no lack of effort to change this picture. And the investment ought to be turbo-charged as the policy frameworks relating to the UK’s Industrial Strategy develop and fill out. After a lag, perhaps we can get to the pace we need to address all the issues.

But where will the capital coming from? Right now, it’s mostly from international investors, rather than financial institutions here in the UK. Which is not just disappointing, but a bad look.

Three years on from the Mansion House Compact, the Accord, government sponsored initiatives like Sterling 20 and the significant capital injection to the British Business Bank, we have still to see meaningful lift off in UK-sourced capital for this and other areas of priority like life sciences, deep tech and defence.

How long before we get to an inflection point? Recent encounters with senior figures in the pensions world have made it clear to me that the need is understood, the propositions (in cleantech and elsewhere) are understood and the game-changing potential is understood.

The market ecology is better understood, too – from the science and technology at the core of the proposition, to the different financial wrappers for the products which follow, to the intermediation in the market, and not forgetting the demand which drives the whole system.

At the same time the collaboration between the pensions and private capital worlds on addressing the technical issues that are creating barriers to the investment or unhelpful friction remains very strong. But we have to move faster.

A year or so ago, one of the City’s most prominent investors took aim at all the issues getting in the way of investment at scale across the UK and declared that ‘we must stop admiring the problems and actually do something’.

The vibe is now better, but the ‘something’ remains a work in progress and this summer reminded us that we are up against it in terms of delivering solutions and securing the benefits for the UK. A busy autumn lies ahead.

Michael Moore
Chief Executive, UK Private Capital

This article was originally published on 9 September 2026 on the Private Equity News website here.