The regulator faces two performance reviews per year from the ministers, and aims to force them to be more growth-friendly.
Rachel Reeves met Downing Street financial, environmental and health regulators on Monday, urging them to continue streamlining their approach and make it more business.
“There’s a lot of stuff that has hindered growth over the past decade or so, one of them is a regulated landscape if you’re honest and know better than anyone,” Reeves said. “There are too many overlapping regulations, too many bureaucracy, too late to get things done.”
The finance authorities said regulators would be asked to submit “major performance indicators” by June and would then be carried to assess progress for a per yearly doubled evaluation meeting with the relevant Secretary of State.
As Reeves fights to start growing after a series of disappointing economic data, the prime minister may legislate to allow competitive watchdogs to scrutinise fewer mergers.
The Chairperson’s Competitive Markets Agency (CMA), which was forced by the government in January, is considering changing the threshold for intervening in the proposed acquisition.
This could mean that the merged company will increase its market share that it will need to trigger CMA involvement from the current 25% level.
George Dibb, Associate Director of Economic Policy at IPPR ThinkTank, said: I think reform is dangerous if it begins to affect the CMA’s ability to maintain competition in the economy. ”
A WatchDog spokesperson said: “The CMA continues to work closely with the government to ensure that the UK’s merger regulation regime is effective and proportional.”
After gathering with regulators on Monday, Reeves said city regulators are pleased with the progress that Prudential Regulators (PRA) and Financial Conduct (FCA) have shifted their focus on growth.
In a speech by Mansion House in November, the Prime Minister suggested that urban regulations had gone too far after the 2008 global financial crisis, reducing risk.
The government also said last week that it would fold another financial watchdog, the Payment Systems Regulatory Authority, into the FCA.
In addition to culling regulators, workers are working to reduce the number of arms leader agencies implementing government decisions to reduce costs and improve accountability.
Like large businesses, conservators who want to rebuild their land could benefit from their willingness to cut government regulations.
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Reeves and Environment Secretary Steve Reed will remove the need for trusted partners (parents who have worked on nature schemes) who have been working on nature schemes for some time to seek permission to restore nature from Nature England or the Environmental Agency.
At this point, conservators who want to restore or dig rivers must apply to multiple regulators for approval, a time-consuming and costly process.
The Ministry of Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said the new plan will allow trusted nature conservation and environmental partners to “quickly move the restoration of nature without applying it to multiple regulators for permits.”
Jake Fiennes, the conservation director for Holcome Estate in northern Norfolk, said the current system makes it much more difficult to restore rare chalkstreams running through the National Nature Reserve or excavate wetland areas for many endangered species of birds calling their homes.
He said: “Flood risk activity permits are currently a disaster. As we help the government provide environmental goals, we do so with almost no liability for anyone committing freshwater ecoids. This is an opt-in policing system that punishes compliance and desperately needs reform.”
Natural English sources agreed that the system needs reform. In fact, our regulatory framework was designed to stop bad things happening (very important), but now we need an approach to encouraging good things. ”
