Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to the Cabinet Office Annual report and accounts 2024-2025, HC1372, 23 October 2025, with reference to the target to reduce the cost of regulation by 25% on page 7, what the Government’s latest estimate is of the total cost of regulation to businesses and organisations in the public sector; what baseline year and total monetary value were used to calculate the stated target to reduce that cost; and by what date the Government aims to achieve that reduction.

We have estimated the baseline of the administrative burden of regulation on businesses (as at start of April 2025) at £22.4bn a year in 2024 prices. Our target is to reduce this figure by 25%, or £5.6bn, by the end of Parliament.

We have adopted a pragmatic and ‘top-down’ approach to estimating the baseline, drawing on a range of existing data sources including previous baselining exercises, DBT’s regular Business Perceptions Survey (BPS), DBT business population estimates and Office for National Statistics data on wages and labour costs.