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Chancellor Rachel Reeves will this week step up pressure on British regulators to scrap anti-growth laws, ahead of renewed business criticism that the government is making things worse.
CBI chairman Rupert Soames on Monday said the industry had been “crushed” by government policies and new employment regulations would stifle growth and cause job losses.
Labour's election manifesto contained promises to control a range of areas from the workplace to football. The government's own assessment of the impact on its workers' rights package estimates it will cost companies £5bn a year.
Downing Street insists there is no conflict between its drive to deregulate and its willingness to introduce new rules in certain sectors.
“It's an adjustment to be made in management,” said Number 10, arguing that better workplace rights legislation would help create a more productive workforce.
But the Prime Minister's spokesman Sir Keir Starmer added: “The Government will take an unabashed approach to growth. We will work with regulators to remove regulations that unnecessarily slow growth. ”
Reeves' allies say the chancellor will “pull” some of Britain's leaders to press the message on Thursday, as he tries to show he has an agenda to get Britain out of its recession.
Some business leaders are not convinced. Soames told the BBC that the government's “work pay” workplace reforms would force companies to lay off workers and create “a playground for employment rights lawyers”.
“I think they're not only going to hire people, I think they're going to let people go,” he said. “I think there could be a lot of urgency before some of these things work.”
Business groups have accused ministers of introducing a barrage of red tape as the government bans exploitative zero-zero contracts, ends “fire and rehire” tactics, introduces basic rights from day one and protects workers from unfair dismissal.
The Labor policy also includes “increased registration and reporting requirements” for companies, and promised to introduce a “binding rule” for companies developing artificial intelligence.
Ministers have committed to “decisive action to improve building safety, including regulation”, after the Grenfell tower fire.
The Starmer government is setting up a new independent regulator to ensure the financial stability of football clubs. Nondyebo said the new policy of “buy now, pay later” companies will support growth in the sector and protect consumers.
Reeves It argues that while Labor will not abandon the necessary new rules, it believes regulators need to look at the existing rule book and adopt a whole new culture around risk.
To him Speech of the Great House In November, the chancellor told reporters: “The UK is managing risk, but not growth.”
Starmer, Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, wrote to 17 observers on Christmas Eve asking them to identify proposals for growth. Thursday's meeting at the Treasury is designed to assess progress.
The first phase of regulators will include Ofwat, Ofcom, Ofgem, the Environment Agency and the Office for Rail and Road, as well as the Competition and Markets Authority.
CMA is located in Reeves and Starmer. “They are the ones who always come to negotiate with businesses,” said one of the chancellor's colleagues.
The CMA on Monday published its annual plan, which uses the word “growth” 111 times, as the regulator tries to show the government that it is responding to the mandate.
The agency took pains to show that this is not a new approach, stating in the plan that this is the “third year” following such a plan.
The watchdog also announced it had set up a “growth and investment council” with bodies including the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce “to help identify competitive opportunities to unlock growth and investment”.
In October, Starmer told a room of about 200 senior executives that the government “will make sure that every director in this country, especially our directors of the economy and competition, take growth as seriously as this room does”.
The focus comes in part from the CMA's handling of Microsoft's $75bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which was finally approved by the agency in 2023 after the deal closed.
The pressure comes as new digital market competition rules come into full effect this month, which will affect large tech companies that are considered to have more influence on certain digital activities.
Reeves' colleagues say he wants to work with observers, including encouraging them to push back against an entrenched culture where ministers “ask for more regulation every time something goes wrong”.
“Rachel wants them to turn around and say 'this is not our problem, it's a political problem — fix it',” said one person. “He wants to challenge the administration.”