Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced a “blitz on business bureaucracy” to cut red tape and regulations in an effort to save UK businesses £6bn per year by the end of the Parliament.
The government has already set a 25% admin reduction target in its industrial strategy and ministers have today confirmed more details.
Publishing an update on efforts to tackle burdensome regulations in a “crackdown on needless form-filling”, the government said measures to come include increasing the monetary size thresholds for micro, small, medium and large sized businesses which the Treasury says will remove over 100,000 firms from some corporate reporting requirements.
The government has today published a new “dashboard” to allow the public to scrutinise the performance of regulators. It will be updated quarterly.
The Department for Business and Trade has also launched a consultation which asks businesses to share which regulations they think aren’t “fit for purpose and unjustifiably inhibits growth, innovation and investment”.
New research on businesses’ perceptions of regulation found that 47% believe it is an obstacle to success. Two in five felt that the new regulatory arrangements after Brexit are more challenging, with only 1% saying they are less challenging.
The amount of time firms spend on compliance has increased from 6.8 days in 2022 to eight days, and the proportion of businesses reporting a rise in costs for dealing with regulations has also increased.
Speaking at the government’s Regional Investment Summit in Birmingham, the chancellor said:
“Our mission is clear: to create the right environment for investment through our regulatory reforms, to crowd in capital through our public financial institutions, to break down silos to collaboration on local projects, and to support innovation and growth throughout the UK.”
Also speaking at the summit, business secretary Peter Kyle said:
“When regulation is well designed and carefully implemented, it can promote growth and investment. And, of course, we have to maintain standards of health and safety and consumer protection.
“At the same time, we need to lighten the administrative load on the wealth creators so they can do more to drive economic growth.
“Regulation that restricts growth requires a rewrite or the rubbish bin. British business shouldn’t have to put up with it.”
Also announced today was a consultation on “AI growth labs” which innovators can use to test new AI products in real-world conditions with regulations temporarily relaxed.