Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what her Department's policy is on whether compliance costs reported for financial regulations should be subject to periodic independent verification.

Following the announcement to cut the administrative costs of regulation on businesses by 25% by the end of this Parliament, the government is now taking forward a baselining exercise to understand how much regulation is costing and where it can be reformed to remove unnecessary burdens and achieve its policy objectives more efficiently. We are considering a range of methodologies to ensure our baselining is robust.

The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 requires the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to undertake and publish a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) when consulting on any proposal to make or amend rules, to analyse the likely expected costs and benefits arising from the changes. The FCA and PRA are also required to maintain CBA Panels which provide advice on the preparation of CBAs.