Time is Money: How Regulators Can Support Growth (Industry and Regulators Committee Report)

Lord Smith of Ranmoor Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Smith of Ranmoor (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lady Hayter for securing this debate and for leading the committee with distinction. I declare my interests as a chairman of Cranswick plc and as a director of Pret. The committee’s report pre-dates my introduction into your Lordships’ House by some months but I hope that my past experience will be useful to your Lordships’ deliberations, now and in the future.

Good regulation can enable growth. The challenge is not to suppose that we have to choose between effective regulation and economic growth; that is a false dichotomy. Regulators need to explicitly incorporate growth into their long-term and medium-term plans. For some, that might mean that the legal framework that established them and set their terms of reference needs to be altered to include that purpose. Regulators often hide their lack of enthusiasm for this topic behind prescriptive legislation. Are some of those pieces of legislation now so out of step with our objectives that they need a fresh look?

How many regulators have publicly reset their strategy since the Government challenged them with the objective of prioritising growth? In that new look at strategy, I suggest that a partnership with the sector being regulated could provide some fresh, innovative ideas—always remembering the regulator’s core purpose. The strategy should be simple, outcomes-based and follow some core principles.

As an ex-regulator, I know that a well-publicised strategic shift will be an empty promise unless followed by a change in the allocation of resources to meet that new objective. The evidence of that would come in revised organisational structures, with realistic budgets to match their aims. Being clear about what will and will not be done would be a bonus. Some regulators would work better, and with the grain of growth and their core purpose, if those organisations contained some or more people with experience in the sector being regulated, working alongside career civil servants.

The delivery of those strategic growth objectives has to be strictly measured and the results reported with a timely, transparent method. Of course, this accountability should include calculations of any consequent new admin burden and, more importantly, of the impact—growth, I hope—on the sector being regulated. This is often nuanced and properly risk-based, but it is the absence of data that frustrates many of those being regulated. Each regulator should be required to provide measures of the growth it has facilitated in a “comply or explain” mandatory framework.

I will say a word or two about pace. Delays are not harmless. One of the phrases that business grows weary of hearing from regulators is, “It takes as long as it takes”. In the time taken for a regulator to review an innovation in this country, an international business has likely exported those jobs and investment elsewhere. Those of us with global business experience will be able to cite other nations that are able to fast-track innovation and investment by taking a proportionate, risk-based approach. An SME in the same situation might simply run out cash.

There are bound to be trade-offs in conflicts between growth and other objectives; I am clear that the regulator is not best placed to resolve them. They need clear political direction. The Government need to set clear priorities, regulators must make timely and proportionate decisions—my shorthand here is: not light touch but right touch—and businesses must have the clarity and confidence to invest and innovate. I look forward positively in the expectation that this work continues to generate change in the attitudes and behaviours of all those involved.