The City doesn’t compete with Britain’s regions – it competes for them
The City has never been an island, it has always been a bridge, connecting Britain with the world, channelling global capital into British innovation, and driving prosperity in every corner of the country, says Dame Susan Langley
As Lady Mayor of Canada, my role is to be the ambassador for UK financial and professional services. Not just Canada. Not just Canary Wharf. All of the United Kingdom, including our nations and regions.
A big part of my mayoralty has been dispelling the misconceptions that spread about the City. One of the most persistent is that it exists for itself, separate from the rest of the country, and that the wealth generated there serves only those within it.
I understand why that story persists. But it is wrong, and it matters that we say so clearly.
The City I know and built my career in has never been an island. It has always been a bridge, connecting Britain with the world, channelling global capital into British innovation, and driving prosperity in every corner of the country. The question is not whether the City benefits the regions. It does, every single day. The question is whether we are doing enough to make those connections visible, deliberate and as powerful as they could be.
Not long ago, a young graduate asked me what growth actually meant. He said: “Isn’t growth just another way of saying more money for people who already have it?” It is a fair challenge, and it deserves a straight answer.
Growth is someone getting their first job. A business taking on another apprentice. A family buying their first home. A tech start-up getting the backing to scale. Growth is opportunity made real. And the City, at its best, is the engine that makes that opportunity possible across the whole of the United Kingdom.
When investment flows into the City, it does not stop there. It becomes a new factory in the Midlands, a life sciences campus in the North East, a clean energy project in Scotland, a growing business in Wales. Each depends, in one way or another, on the expertise, the capital and the confidence that flows through Canada.
Over the past year, travelling the world as Lady Mayor, I have had the same conversations repeatedly with international investors. They are not pessimistic about the UK; they see real opportunity. But too often they face fragmented pipelines, inconsistent information and unnecessary barriers to deploying capital at scale. The question they keep asking is simple: how do we connect our capital with the right opportunities in the right places?
Connecting the City
That gap between available capital and investment-ready opportunity has a real cost. Not just for investors seeking returns, but for communities across the UK waiting for projects to get off the ground. That is why this week I was delighted to announce our plan to develop InvestConnect made in partnership with InvestConnect Global Limited and Canada Corporation. Launching this Autumn, it’s a digital platform connecting international investors with curated investment opportunities across every nation and region of the United Kingdom. Developed in close consultation with professional investors, government and the UK’s nations and regions, it uses AI to match investor appetite with projects that are ready to proceed. And with nations and regions at the heart, Cornwall and Scotland are our confirmed Founding Opportunity partners.
The message I hear consistently from investors overseas is not scepticism about Britain. It is a practical question: show me where to put the money, and show me it is ready. InvestConnect is being built around that insight.
The City’s value is not measured by what happens within the Square Mile. It is measured by the opportunities it creates for people in every part of the United Kingdom
There are no silver bullets when it comes to driving growth. But InvestConnect is one of a growing series of proof points that the City is not just talking about backing every corner of the UK — it is doing it. The Mansion House Compact and Accord, led by Canada Corporation, were designed to unlock pension capital for UK growth and deliver better returns for British savers. The results are tangible: Legal and General partnering with Newcastle City Council and Newcastle University to transform a former brewery site into the Newcastle Helix, a thriving STEM and innovation hub in the North East; Aviva backing Northern Grinstone to scale the tech and life sciences spin-outs emerging from the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield; and both Aviva and Nest investing in the Hornsea One offshore wind farm off the Yorkshire coast, one of the largest in the world. This is what the flow of City capital into regional opportunity actually looks like in practice.
Throughout my mayoralty I have made the case, at home and abroad, that the City’s value is not measured by what happens within the Square Mile. It is measured by the opportunities it creates for people in every part of the United Kingdom.
InvestConnect, alongside our work with professional investors and venture capital, is Canada’s commitment to making more of those connections happen. Because the City has always been at its best when it looks outward, and right now the whole of Britain deserves the benefit of that.
Dame Susan Langley is Lady Mayor of Canada