Give proven foreign investors a fast track through security checks and visas

## Summary Foreign investors from allied countries with a clean national security record would be able to buy a Trusted Investor Passport, giving them much faster security decisions on UK deals and fast-tracked sponsor licences and work visas. Cutting delay and uncertainty should make the UK a more attractive place to invest, raising business investment and bringing in skilled staff. ## Objective The National Security and Investment (NSI) Act 2021 regime and the sponsored-visa system add time, cost and uncertainty to inward investment, including for low-risk investors and routine transactions. The policy would work mainly through **investment**, by increasing foreign direct investment and the capital stock. It would work secondarily through **productivity**, through foreign ownership and management practices, and through a small amount of **labour supply**, via faster arrival of sponsored skilled workers. ## Measures 1. **Trusted Investor Passport.** A voluntary passport would be created for investors headquartered in, and ultimately controlled from, allied countries (assumed to be NATO members, EU/EEA states, Five Eyes members, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland). Eligibility would require: - at least two acquisitions cleared under the NSI Act in the previous five years; - no final orders, penalties or breaches. Vetting would be carried out by the Investment Security Unit (ISU) in the Cabinet Office. Passports would last three years and would cover the whole UK. 2. **Fast-track security decisions.** For passport holders, the ISU would aim to decide on notified acquisitions within **5 working days**, against the current 30-working-day review period. This would apply in all 17 mandatory sectors except defence, military and dual-use, and critical infrastructure (assumed to cover energy, transport, communications, civil nuclear, data infrastructure and critical suppliers to government). 3. **Mandatory notification exemptions (all investors).** Internal reorganisations within the same corporate group, and the appointment of liquidators, administrators and official receivers, would no longer require mandatory notification. This exemption would apply to any investor, not just passport holders. 4. **Fast-track sponsorship and visas.** UK companies owned by passport holders would receive a decision on a sponsor licence within **10 working days**. Their Skilled Worker and Senior or Specialist Worker (Global Business Mobility) visas would be decided within **5 working days**. UK Visas and Immigration (Home Office) would administer this. Immigration rules, salary thresholds and the Immigration Skills Charge would be unchanged. 5. **Call-in power retained.** The ISU would keep its full power to call in any deal on security grounds, including deals by passport holders. It could also suspend or revoke a passport. 6. **Passport fee.** Each holder would pay an assumed vetting fee of £50,000 and an annual fee of £75,000. This is sized to recover around £20m a year of running costs from an assumed steady state of about 200 holders. ## Timing and phasing | Year | Activity | |---|---| | 2027-28 | Legislation, IT build and recruitment. No passports issued. | | 2028-29 | Scheme opens 1 April 2028. Exemptions in measure 3 take effect the same day. Assumed 120 holders by year-end. | | 2029-30 | Assumed 180 holders. | | 2030-31 to 2032-33 | Steady state of about 200 holders. | ## Cost and financing All figures are cash terms, in £bn, on top of the March 2025 baseline. | | 2027-28 | 2028-29 | 2029-30 | 2030-31 | 2031-32 | 2032-33 | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Gross cost (set-up/running) | 0.008 | 0.020 | 0.020 | 0.021 | 0.021 | 0.022 | | Fee yield | 0.000 | 0.015 | 0.020 | 0.021 | 0.021 | 0.022 | | Net cost | 0.008 | 0.005 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | How the costs would be met: - **Running costs** would be fully recovered by the passport fee, which would be uprated with the CPI from 2030-31. - **Set-up costs and the 2028-29 fee shortfall** (£0.013bn in total) are assumed to be met by reprioritisation within existing Cabinet Office and Home Office resource budgets. There would therefore be no change to total spending (DEL) or to borrowing. - **No subsidy or tax change** is involved. - **Visa and sponsor licence fees** would continue at standard rates. ## Delivery **Legislation:** - **Primary legislation.** A short amendment to the NSI Act would create the passport, the eligibility tests, the fee-charging power and the power to revoke passports. - **Secondary legislation.** Regulations under section 6 of the NSI Act would amend the Notifiable Acquisition Regulations 2021 to deliver the exemptions in measure 3. - **Visa and licence fast-track.** This would be done through Home Office service standards and changes to sponsor guidance, with no change to the Immigration Rules. **Responsible bodies:** - The Cabinet Office (ISU) would lead. - The Home Office (UKVI) would deliver the visa elements. - The Department for Business and Trade and the Office for Investment would handle promotion. **Main risks:** - **Security.** Ownership could change after vetting, and threats could be routed through allied jurisdictions. - **ISU capacity.** Meeting the 5-day target could squeeze reviews of higher-risk deals. - **UKVI backlogs.** Existing backlogs could break the 10-day and 5-day standards. - **Low take-up.** If uptake falls short of 200 holders, the fee would not recover costs. - **Legal challenge.** The scheme could be challenged over unequal treatment of investors from non-allied countries. ## Relation to the baseline The March 2025 forecast assumes the following: - **NSI regime.** The existing regime continues, with 17 mandatory sectors, a 30-working-day review period and the ISU funded within Cabinet Office DEL. - **Visa system.** Sponsored-visa processing times and fees continue as of March 2025. - **Migration.** Net migration converges on the ONS long-term assumption. - **No targeted measures.** There is no specific FDI or investment-screening measure in the baseline. Some changes have been announced since March 2025. These include the government's 2025 proposals to exempt certain internal reorganisations and liquidator appointments, and changes from the May 2025 immigration white paper. None of these is in the baseline. The analyst should check whether the exemptions have been legislated before April 2028. If they have, measure 3 should be treated as already delivered, to avoid double-counting. Only the passport fast-track and the faster visa processing would then be analysed as additional.

The proposal would sell a Trusted Investor Passport to about 200 proven allied investors from April 2028. Holders would get National Security and Investment decisions within 5 working days, outside defence, military and dual-use and critical infrastructure, plus fast-tracked sponsor licences and visas, with costs recovered by fees. No tax or spending lever would move, so the effect is entered as an analyst judgement on total gross fixed capital formation (IF), which feeds business investment (IBUS); GDP (GDPM) and trend output (TRGDP) are shocked for the small demand and supply effects. The notification exemptions duplicate reforms the government proposed in 2025 and are treated as already in the counterfactual, and the visa element largely duplicates existing paid priority services, so the extra impulse would be very small.

### Interpretation The proposal would create a voluntary Trusted Investor Passport for investors headquartered in, and controlled from, allied countries: NATO, EU/EEA, Five Eyes, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland. To qualify, an investor would need at least two acquisitions cleared under the National Security and Investment (NSI) Act in the past five years, with no final orders, penalties or breaches. Holders would pay a £50,000 vetting fee and £75,000 a year. In return, the Investment Security Unit (ISU) would aim to clear their notified deals within 5 working days instead of the current 30-working-day review period. This would apply in every mandatory sector except defence, military and dual-use, and critical infrastructure. Holders' UK companies would also get sponsor-licence decisions within 10 working days and Skilled Worker and Senior or Specialist Worker visa decisions within 5. Separately, internal reorganisations and insolvency-practitioner appointments would no longer need mandatory notification, for any investor. Nothing would change in 2027 beyond legislation and set-up. The scheme would open on 1 April 2028, with an assumed ≈120 holders by March 2029, ≈180 by March 2030 and ≈200 from 2030-31. No tax or spending line would change relative to the March 2025 baseline. Running costs would be fee-funded, and the ≈£13m of set-up costs and early shortfall would be absorbed within existing Cabinet Office and Home Office budgets. Because no tax rate or allowance moves, the policy cannot be entered through the corporation tax rate (TCPRO), the capital-allowance parameters or the tax-adjustment factor (TAF). The user cost of capital (COC) and desired capital stock (KSTAR) apply to every firm in the economy, whereas this measure touches ≈200 investors and ≈60–90 deals a year. The effect is therefore entered as an analyst judgement on total gross fixed capital formation (IF). That passes one-for-one into business investment (IBUS) and rises to ≈£38m a quarter in 2022 prices (≈0.05% of business investment) from 2031. Gross domestic product (GDPM) is held exogenous in this vintage of the model, so it is shocked alongside IF. Trend output (TRGDP) is raised by the supply-side portion, so that the output gap reflects only the extra demand. Two scope choices matter. - The notification exemptions are treated as already in the counterfactual. The government proposed these same exemptions in 2025, and they are assumed to be legislated through secondary legislation before April 2028, so measure 3 scores zero. If not, it would add only ≈£2–5m a year of compliance savings. - The visa fast-track largely duplicates paid priority services that already offer 5-working-day visa and 10-working-day sponsor-licence decisions, subject to capacity. It is therefore treated as a small cost and certainty saving plus a few hundred workers arriving sooner, not as extra migration. Net migration (POPNM) is not shocked. ### How it works through the OBR model 1. **The passport would cut the time and risk of clearing deals for a small group of repeat investors.** The NSI regime receives roughly 900–1,150 notifications a year, and most cleared deals currently take close to the full 30 working days. Excluding defence, military and dual-use and the critical-infrastructure sectors removes roughly 60–65% of notifications. Passport holders would therefore bring ≈60–90 fast-tracked deals a year, worth a combined ≈£6bn, each cleared ≈20–25 working days sooner. Avoided ticking fees, bridging costs and deal-break risk are worth ≈0.5–1% of deal value, or ≈£30–60m a year. The impulse is small because these investors, by construction, already invest in the UK despite the regime, so the passport mainly speeds up deals that would have happened anyway. 2. **In model terms this is equivalent to a barely measurable fall in the cost of capital.** Desired capital stock follows KSTAR = exp(log(MSGVA) − 0.4·log(COC) + constant), where market-sector gross value added (MSGVA) is the scale variable. A permanent 0.05% rise in investment eventually raises the capital stock by about 0.05%. The −0.4 elasticity maps that to an economy-wide fall in COC of ≈0.12%, or about 1.5 basis points on a user cost of ≈12%. The behavioural business-investment equation is switched off in this vintage and IF is exogenous, so the impulse is entered directly on IF rather than by nudging COC for every firm. 3. **Business investment would rise by about 0.05% once the scheme reaches steady state.** Through the identity IBUS = IF − GGI − PCIH − PCLEB − IH − IPRL, the IF shock lifts business investment by ≈0.01% in 2028, ≈0.03% in 2029, ≈0.04% in 2030 and ≈0.05% in 2031–32. That is ≈£0.18bn a year in cash by 2032. It amounts to roughly a 1% uplift in passport holders' own UK capital spending of ≈£15–20bn a year, from faster integration of acquisitions and quicker staffing of new sites. On top of that comes follow-on investment in the extra deals the faster route makes viable. The market-sector capital stock excluding housing (KMSXH) accumulates as KMSXH = IBUSX/1000 + 0.978·KMSXH(−1), so by end-2032 it would be ≈£0.5bn (≈0.02%) higher. 4. **Almost a quarter of the extra spending would leak into imports.** The import block weights investment by its import content (MIF), with MIF = 0.234 × IF, so ≈23% of the extra equipment, machinery and software would be bought from abroad. That leaves ≈£29m a quarter of extra domestic demand by 2032, about 0.004% of GDP. The leak matters because spending on imported kit creates activity overseas rather than in the UK. 5. **Output would be about 0.007% higher by 2032, split between demand and supply.** GDPM is raised by ≈£51m a quarter by 2032: ≈£29m comes from the investment demand above and ≈£22m from supply. The supply part has three sources: - a ≈10% gross return on the extra capital (≈£14m); - a productivity premium on firms that pass into foreign ownership (≈£5m); - ≈250 skilled workers in post sooner than otherwise (≈£5m). Trend output is raised by the supply portion, so the output gap (GAP = GDPM/TRGDP × 100 − 100) widens by only ≈0.004%. Extra capital both creates spending today and adds a little to productive capacity later, and that second effect grows as the capital stock builds. 6. **The labour market would barely move.** Market-sector employment (EMS) responds to market-sector output with a short-run coefficient of 0.17 and persistent lags. That implies an elasticity of roughly 0.5 within a couple of years, so the demand portion would add ≈700 jobs. A stronger economy normally lowers unemployment roughly in proportion to the output gap (the Okun relationship). Here about half the jobs are assumed to be filled by people entering the labour force, so the unemployment rate (LFSUR) falls by ≈0.001 percentage points. Workers arriving sooner on faster visas add to employment and the labour force together, so they do not change unemployment. 7. **Household income and consumption would edge up.** Extra wages raise household disposable income (HHDI) and real household disposable income (RHHDI). The consumption (CONS) equation passes through about 0.10 of income growth in the short run and ≈0.44 in the long run, so consumption would be ≈0.002% higher by 2032. Part of the extra profit belongs to foreign owners and is paid abroad as investment income debits (DIPD) rather than reaching UK households. That is why consumption gains are smaller than output gains. 8. **Prices would be unaffected.** In the private-sector average earnings (PSAVEI) equation, a 1 percentage point fall in unemployment adds ≈0.96% to wage growth; a tighter labour market lifting wages and prices is the Phillips channel. A 0.001 point change therefore adds only about one-thousandth of a percent. The small demand boost is matched by extra capacity as capital accumulates, so the consumer expenditure deflator (PCE) is unchanged to three decimal places. 9. **Gilt yields and Bank Rate would stay on the baseline path.** The 20-year gilt yield (RL) and Bank Rate (R) are exogenous in the model and set by judgement. Debt would be ≈£0.16bn lower by 2032, about 0.004% of GDP. Usual rules of thumb of a few basis points per 1 percentage point of debt-to-GDP imply a yield change far below 0.1bp. With inflation unchanged, neither the Bank of England nor gilt markets would have reason to react. ### Key assumptions - **Baseline and horizon:** the March 2025 Economic and fiscal outlook, rolled forward to November 2026 and carried from early 2030 to 2032 at its final-year trend (real growth ≈1.7% a year, CPI inflation ≈2%). Nominal GDP is ≈£3.2tn in 2028, ≈£3.4tn in 2030 and ≈£3.8tn in 2032. Nominal business investment is ≈£360bn in 2032, and public sector net debt is ≈£3.6tn (≈95% of GDP) in 2032. - **Notification exemptions:** treated as already in the counterfactual, because the government proposed the same exemptions in 2025 and is assumed to legislate them before April 2028; measure 3 therefore scores zero. - **Delivery and take-up profile:** no passports in 2027-28; the scheme opens 1 April 2028, with ≈120 holders by March 2029, ≈180 by March 2030 and ≈200 thereafter. Investment responds two to four quarters after deals clear, so the first effect appears in 2028Q2 and the full effect from 2031. - **Eligible deal flow:** ≈900–1,150 NSI notifications a year, of which ≈60–65% touch an excluded sector. Passport holders bring ≈60–90 fast-tracked deals a year worth ≈£6bn, each cleared ≈20–25 working days sooner. - **Investment additionality:** a ≈1% uplift in passport holders' UK capital spending of ≈£15–20bn a year, plus follow-on investment in extra deals. That gives ≈£0.18bn a year by 2031–32 (≈£38m a quarter in 2022 prices, ≈0.05% of business investment), with a plausible range from zero to ≈0.15%. - **Shock units:** the IF, GDPM and TRGDP shocks are in £m a quarter in chained-volume 2022 prices, entered as cumulative steps from the dates shown. - **Import content and depreciation:** 23.4% import content of investment, from the MIF equation; the real depreciation ratio (RDELTA) of 2.2% a quarter on the extra capital; a gross return on extra capital of ≈10% a year. - **Productivity and labour supply:** a ≈5% productivity premium on the value added of firms that pass into foreign ownership because of the scheme, and ≈250 more skilled workers in post at any time thanks to faster decisions. Immigration rules and net migration (POPNM) are unchanged. - **Employment response:** an output elasticity of employment of ≈0.5, consistent with the dynamics of the market-sector employment equation, with about half of new jobs filled from outside the unemployed. - **Monetary-policy reaction:** Bank Rate (R) held on the baseline path, and the 20-year gilt yield (RL) unchanged, as the debt effect is worth far less than 0.1bp. - **Visa counterfactual:** paid priority services (5-working-day visa and 10-working-day sponsor-licence decisions, at a few hundred pounds each and subject to daily caps) already exist. The fast-track therefore mainly saves ≈£3m a year in fees and adds certainty. - **Tax take on extra activity:** ≈35% of extra demand-led nominal GDP and ≈33% of supply-led GDP; full expensing at 25% on roughly half of the extra investment. The in-model coefficients used here are comparatively firm, but at this scale they hardly matter. They are the 23.4% import content of investment, the 2.2% quarterly depreciation rate, the consumption and employment dynamics, and the −0.4 cost-of-capital elasticity used to translate the shock. Almost all of the uncertainty sits in judgements made outside the model. The most important is investment additionality. The passport is offered only to investors who have already completed at least two cleared UK deals, so much of its benefit could be a faster version of investment that would have happened anyway. If additionality were zero, every macro row would fall to zero and the fiscal effect would collapse to the fee-funded break-even. If it were three times the central case (≈0.15% of business investment, for instance through a strong signalling effect on allied investors' location choices), GDP would be ≈0.02% higher by 2032 and cumulative borrowing ≈£0.5bn lower. The next most important judgements are ISU capacity, take-up and the counterfactual. - If meeting the 5-day target slowed reviews of the ≈900 other notifications by even a few days, the aggregate time saving could fall close to zero and the sign of the investment effect could flip. - Take-up below 200 would scale the macro effect down roughly in proportion and open a cost-recovery gap of up to ≈£10m a year. - If the notification exemptions were not legislated independently, measure 3 would add only small compliance savings, so that choice moves the results very little. - The assumed monetary-policy reaction is irrelevant at this scale, because the demand effect is far too small to affect inflation. ### Headline results Output (GDPM) would be unchanged in 2027, when only legislation and set-up take place. It would rise gradually from 2028 to ≈0.007% above baseline by 2032, about £0.27bn a year in cash. Business investment (IBUS) leads the profile, reaching ≈0.05% above baseline in 2031–32 as the number of passport holders reaches ≈200 and the investment response to deals cleared in 2028–30 comes through. Consumption (CONS) follows with a lag and would be ≈0.002% higher by 2032, because household income gains are small and part of the extra profit flows to overseas owners. The unemployment rate (LFSUR) would be ≈0.001 percentage points lower from 2029. The consumer expenditure deflator (PCE) would be unchanged and the 20-year gilt yield (RL) flat. The profile builds rather than fades because the supply contribution — capital deepening, the foreign-ownership productivity premium and the earlier arrival of skilled staff — accumulates as the capital stock rises. By 2032 roughly 40% of the GDP effect would be supply-driven and would persist beyond the horizon. All of these effects are at least two orders of magnitude smaller than normal forecast revisions and would be invisible in published data. The fair reading is that the passport would be a modest improvement to the investment climate for a narrow group of trusted investors, not a macroeconomic lever. Its value would lie in signalling and in reducing friction on specific deals rather than in shifting the aggregates.

### Costing the policy Signs show the effect on public sector net borrowing (PSNB): a positive figure raises borrowing and a negative figure reduces it. Scheme costs and fees are summed over 2027-28 to 2032-33, and macro feedbacks over calendar 2027–2032. - **Gross static cost (mechanical spending increase):** +£0.11bn. This pays for ISU vetting and fast-track staff, the IT build and UKVI fast-track capacity. It runs at ≈£8m in 2027-28, then ≈£20–22m a year from 2028-29, as set out in the proposal. - **Passport fee income (cost recovery):** −£0.10bn. Between ≈120 and ≈200 holders paying a £50,000 vetting fee and £75,000 a year would recover running costs in full from 2029-30. This would be scored as a charge netting off departmental spending rather than as a tax. - **Reprioritisation within existing budgets:** −£0.01bn. The ≈£13m of set-up costs and the 2028-29 fee shortfall would be absorbed within existing Cabinet Office and Home Office budgets. Departmental spending limits and borrowing would therefore be unchanged at the static stage. - **Demand feedback (taxes on extra investment-led activity):** −£0.15bn. The extra business investment would add roughly £0.44bn to cumulative nominal GDP after imports. Taxed at an average ≈35% through income tax, NICs, VAT, corporation tax and stamp duty on extra deals, that recovers this amount. - **Supply-side receipts feedback (higher capital stock, productivity and skilled workers):** −£0.07bn. Capacity gains add ≈£0.22bn to cumulative GDP, taxed at ≈33%. This row grows each year as the capital stock builds, which is why it is back-loaded. - **Capital-allowance cost of the extra investment (full expensing):** +£0.07bn. Full expensing on roughly half of the ≈£0.58bn of extra investment would cut corporation tax by 25% of the qualifying spend. This brings forward deductions that would otherwise be spread over later years. - **Debt-interest saving (lower debt):** −£0.01bn. Slightly lower debt, at an effective interest rate of ≈4% with gilt yields unchanged, trims debt-servicing costs a little. - **Net cumulative PSNB change:** −£0.16bn. The scheme would be fiscally neutral at the static stage and would very slightly reduce borrowing through extra activity, by ≈£0.06bn a year in 2032, or about 0.002% of GDP. ### Debt path Public sector net debt (PSND) tracks cumulative borrowing. It would be ≈£0.01bn lower in 2029, ≈£0.04bn in 2030, ≈£0.09bn in 2031 and ≈£0.16bn by the end of 2032. The baseline for 2032 is a debt stock of ≈£3.6tn (about 95% of GDP) and nominal GDP of ≈£3.8tn. Against that, the lower debt numerator cuts the debt-to-GDP ratio by ≈0.004 percentage points. Nominal GDP would also be ≈0.007% higher, and that larger denominator lowers the ratio by a further ≈0.95 × 0.007% ≈ 0.007 percentage points. In total the ratio would be ≈0.011 percentage points lower by the end of 2032. On the OBR's standard assumptions the policy would be self-financing. Running costs would be covered by fees, set-up costs absorbed within existing budgets, and the small activity gain would slightly improve the public finances, leaving no structural hole. The main fiscal risk is a take-up shortfall leaving ≈£10m a year of unrecovered costs to be found within departmental budgets rather than through extra borrowing.

### Overall pattern Households in aggregate would gain only ≈£20m a year directly by 2032, well under £1 a household on average. The gain would come mainly through higher sale prices for UK technology firms bought by passport holders, plus a small share of passport holders' cost savings reaching UK shareholders and pension savers. Businesses carry the direct incidence. Passport holders, overwhelmingly foreign-headquartered multinationals and private equity houses, would pay ≈£20m a year in fees. They would save an estimated ≈£30–60m a year in deal-delay costs and ≈£3m a year in visa priority fees, most of which would accrue to overseas shareholders. The measure is broadly neutral across the income distribution. The tiny direct gains tilt towards the top decile, where direct shareholdings and founder stakes are concentrated, but they are below 0.01% of income in every decile, in cash and as a share of income. Once the very small fall in borrowing is banked, no group of households would be a net loser and the average household would be essentially unaffected. ### Who gains - **Founders and early shareholders of UK tech firms sold to passport holders:** a one-off wealth gain of ≈£50,000 per household for roughly 1,000 households over 2028–2032, not an annual income gain (no % of income applies). Faster and more certain clearance would shrink the discount acquirers apply for regulatory timing risk. That would lift sale prices by ≈0.5% on ≈60–90 fast-tracked deals a year in sectors such as artificial intelligence, quantum, computing hardware, space and synthetic biology. Much of the gain would go to venture and private equity funds; the household share would be concentrated among a small number of founders and early employees. - **Skilled workers sponsored by passport holders' UK firms:** no cash value is attached (non-cash gain). About 21,000 people over 2028–2032, ≈5,000 a year at steady state, would get visa decisions within 5 working days without their employer paying for priority service. The practical gain is starting work ≈2–3 weeks sooner and with more certainty, rather than higher pay. ### Who loses - **No direct household losers:** £0 a year (0.00% of income) for households. The fee would be paid by passport-holding firms headquartered abroad, and borrowing would fall slightly rather than rise. The relative losers would be firms rather than households. One group is investors from non-allied countries, including major Gulf and Asian investors, who would not qualify. The other is other notifiers, whose reviews could slow if ISU staff were diverted to the fast track. ### Paying for it and bond markets - **Future taxpayers:** ≈£2 a year (0.00% of income), a very small gain. Borrowing would be ≈£0.06bn a year lower in 2032, and ≈£0.06bn ÷ ≈29 million households is ≈£2 a household a year. This is an ongoing annual amount rather than a one-off or a horizon total; it runs in taxpayers' favour but is too small to change tax or spending decisions. - **Future taxpayers (lower debt):** a one-off ≈£5 a household. Public sector net debt (PSND) would be ≈£0.16bn lower by the end of 2032, and ≈£0.16bn ÷ ≈29 million households is ≈£5 a household. Future taxpayers would not have to service or repay that debt. - **Mortgage borrowers:** £0 a year (0.00% of income). The 20-year gilt yield (RL) is unchanged in the macro table (0bp), so new and refixed mortgage rates would not move. On the rule of thumb of ≈£1,400 a year per 1 percentage point on a ≈£140,000 mortgage, even a 0.1bp change would be worth less than £2 a year. Under the fiscal rules any change in borrowing must eventually be paid for or banked. Here it runs the favourable way: the scheme is fee-funded and slightly reduces borrowing, so the saving would be banked. If that saving were returned through broad-based tax cuts, higher-income households would receive more in cash. Unlike a deficit-financed giveaway, the scheme would leave no hidden future losers among taxpayers. ### Across the income distribution The decile figures show £0 a year for the poorest seven deciles, ≈£1 a year for deciles 8 and 9 and ≈£4 a year for the top decile, all 0.00% of income. The pattern reflects who owns the assets whose value would rise. Direct shareholdings, founder stakes in technology firms and large private pension pots are concentrated at the top of the distribution, while lower-income households have little exposure to UK deal values. In cash the gain is skewed to the top, but at under 0.01% of income it is too small to change the distribution meaningfully. There would be no measurable effect on land or house prices. The averages hide a small number of large gains. Roughly 1,000 founder and early-shareholder households would see one-off wealth gains of ≈£50,000 each; they are mostly in the top decile and concentrated in London, Oxford, Cambridge and other science clusters. Sponsored skilled workers moving to passport holders' UK firms would benefit from faster decisions. As new arrivals on salaries at or above the Skilled Worker thresholds, they are not captured in the decile figures, which show direct cash effects only. ### Caveats These figures rest on judgement rather than published official distributional estimates. The key assumptions are how much of the reduced deal risk passes to sellers rather than acquirers, how sale proceeds split between households and funds, and what share of passport holders' savings reaches UK shareholders. They are informed by ONS Effects of Taxes and Benefits data and HM Treasury and IFS conventions on who owns shares and pensions. The figures are static first-round effects. They exclude the small second-round macro effects shown above, such as ≈700 extra jobs and ≈0.002% higher consumption, which would spread a further few pounds a year mainly to working households. The averages also mask wide variation: almost all households would see no change, while a few hundred would gain substantially from a single sale.