CITY AND SUBURBAN
Unplug Frank the CBI can show us how to do better
CHRISTOPHER F I LD ES
0 h dear, oh Frank. Another lumber- ing, patronising, fabulously expensive promotion to get another load of dreary shares off the Government's back. No wonder that, though 11 million people own a share of some sort, half of them have never bought another. The Confederation of British Industry thinks that we can do better. Its member firms now worry about a stock market where half a dozen fund managers can control a company and cut its throat for the asking. More dimly, they worry about an economy where ownership
— most of all through pension funds — is so remote as to imperceptible. The CBI's 'task force' (oh dear, again) on wider share ownership will soon report. It will surely tackle the huge tax disadvantages of own- ing shares directly (rather than through insurance or pension funds.) It may well call for a simple tax break for regular direct investment — label it saving, if that helps — in British shares. Better than telling the Government what to do for the members, it will tell the members what they can do for themselves. Company share shops and share-dealing services, companies offering Personal Equity Plans in their own shares, like Abbey National this week, company savings schemes and share ownership for staff, and surely company bonds as well as shares? Someone must give personal own- ership a shove, someone must get market- ing. It is no use waiting for the Stock Exchange (though the CBI may have vain hopes there) or counting on the Chancel- lor, or leaving it to Frank. It is a job for which the companies already have all the resources. What they have lacked, until now, is the will.
Previous page
