ISA reform and stamp duty relief are sticking plasters for a stock market that needs major surgery, writes Tim Focas

The government wants you to believe this Budget marks a turning point for UK capital markets. The rhetoric from the City minister is confident, the narrative upbeat and the headline reforms couched in the language of revival. But scratch beneath the surface and the package is far too cautious for an economy that has spent the past decade watching its global competitiveness slip away. This is less a reboot of UK capital markets and more a light dusting of the keyboard.

Take the much-trailed UK listing relief. Removing Stamp Duty Reserve Tax (SDRT) for three years after listing sounds exciting, but it is a temporary sweetener rather than a structural incentive. Over the past few years, the problem has not been a shortage of incremental tweaks. The problem has been a lack of radical reform. Companies do not choose a listing venue on the........

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