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For the sake of clarity, the Netherlands has no sovereign wealth fund. It does have a single pension fund for public administration. This is possible because the Dutch population is smaller, so its public administration is smaller. What is possible in Singapore (a national provident fund) is inefficient in the UK because the UK has more civil servants. At best, the UK could imitate the Norwegian oil fund - a sovereign wealth fund based on North Sea oil - to help finance infrastructure, but in the UK case that would have little to do with pensions.

I am all for infrastructure and other long-term investments. However, solvency and oversight regulation has driven pension funds to the short term for decades, to the point where long-term investment markets are suffering. The solution is not tinkering with financial institutions but tinkering with harmful legislation and rules, exactly what the OECD, IMF, World Bank and EU are studying or proposing.

That said, some pension mergers would indeed benefit the UK. There is an optimum size for pension funds and the great majority of UK funds is below it. However, not only is regulation in the way of consolidation, resistance is tough. Years ago, Penny Green and I made the case for economic sector pension funds in a discussion in the UK. We lost the vote and got the feedback that we had the better arguments, but the pension fund advisors didn't want to lose their jobs.