The UK’s Labour government will on Monday set out details of how it plans to slash red tape to boost business, as it struggles to deliver growth nine months after winning power.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ shake-up comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer took aim at the nation’s “flabby state”, sparking anger from unions who called on him to avoid the “incendiary rhetoric” of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) in the US.
The finance ministry said regulators would be summoned to the prime minister’s Downing Street office on Monday to hear Reeves announce her “action plan to deliver on the pledge to cut the administrative cost of regulation on business by a quarter”.
The “radical” plan would cut “costly red tape” such as the “hundreds of pages of guidance on protecting bat habitats which goes far beyond legal requirements”, said a statement, referring to the £100 million ($130 million) spent on a bat tunnel by the company building Britain’s new high-speed HS2 train line.
The tunnel has become a lightning rod for criticism of the planning system, with the Prime Minister describing it as “absurd”.
The number of regulators will also be cut under Reeves’ plan, saving businesses “billions of pounds”, the statement added.
Starmer on Thursday announced that he was axing NHS England which has run the state-run National Health Service in that nation since 2012, in a move seen as a dramatic move to the right.
The government has dubbed NHS England “the world’s largest quango” (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation).
Its abolition was the “beginning not the end” and more health-related quangos would also face the chop, Health Secretary Wes Streeting wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.
Labour ousted former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government in a landslide election victory last July but has seen its popularity ratings fall during a bumpy start.
It is under pressure to deliver on its election promise to kickstart economic growth while keeping prices under control amid a prolonged cost of living crisis.
The central bank in February slashed its forecast for UK economic growth and warned that inflation would rise more than expected this year, blaming global risks amid US tariff threats and deteriorating business confidence in the UK.