Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness with which regulators have complied with the duty to promote growth in the Deregulation Act 2015.

Since it came into effect, the growth duty requires regulators to have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth, alongside the delivery of protections set out in relevant legislation. Guidance has been produced to assist regulators in fulfilling this responsibility, both at a strategic and operational level, including the proper consideration that must be made before allocating resources, setting enforcement policies, and making sanctioning decisions.

In the Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced that the government’s new Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Dame Angela McLean, will oversee a review of the regulator growth duty.