Rachel Reeves summons regulator chiefs to Downing Street to push growth agenda
Rachel Reeves is expected to pile pressure on UK regulators to do more to support growth when she summons bosses to No 11 on Thursday.
The chief executives of watchdogs including the Competition and Markets Authority, communications regulator Ofcom, water regulator Ofwat, and the energy regulator Ofgem, are due to meet the chancellor and business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, in Downing Street, as they face accusations that their work has been a barrier to investment.
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The Office of Rail and Road, the Environment Agency and the Civil Aviation Authority are also expected to appear at the midday meeting.
The discussion comes weeks after Reeves, Reynolds and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, wrote to 17 regulators in the UK on Christmas Eve, ordering them to put forward pro-growth proposals.
Thursday’s meeting is the first in a series of check-ins with those regulators, as the government reviews their plans and progress.
Ministers and officials across government will be engaging with other regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority, about their proposals in the coming weeks.
Regulators were put on notice back in October, when Starmer
used a speech at the government’s investment summit
to promise that he would “rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment” and ensure every regulator in the UK “takes growth as seriously as this room does”.Reeves later told City bankers at the Mansion House dinner in November that the post-financial crisis regulator
and resulted in “unintended consequences, which we must now address.”Thursday’s meeting will take place hours after new data showed that
the UK economy returned to growth in November, with GDP rising by 0.1% in the month
. However, economists had expected growth of 0.2%.In a statement released before the meeting, Reeves said: “Growth is the No 1 mission of this government so we can put more money in people’s pockets and help fund our public services. The economic headwinds we face show the importance of pressing ahead with our programme of reform to kickstart economic growth.”
But she added that that can only happen “if we tackle the barriers to investment and deliver the necessary reforms to make Britain the best place to do business”, including “looking at regulation across the board and “doing what is necessary to reform it”.
“That is the challenge the prime minister set regulators last year and today’s meeting will be about taking this agenda forward because we expect every regulator, in whatever sector, to get on board.”