Starmer vows to clear ‘regulatory weeds’ ahead of Reeves growth speech
Starmer vows to clear ‘regulatory weeds’ ahead of Reeves growth speech
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Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to “clear out the regulatory weeds” to encourage growth, as Rachel Reeves will say that Britain has been “held back” and “accepted stagnation” in a major economic speech. The Prime Minister invoked his New Labour predecessors and Margaret Thatcher, and said that for “too long regulation has stopped Britain building its future”.
It comes as the Chancellor is due to set out policies on Wednesday to encourage economic growth, and hail the region around Oxford and Cambridge as having “the potential to be Europe’s Silicon Valley”. Writing in The Times, Sir Keir criticised the “morass of regulation that effectively bans billions of pounds” of investment, describing “thickets of red tape” that have “spread through the British economy like Japanese knotweed”.
He said ministers will “kick down the barriers to building, clear out the regulatory weeds and allow a new era of British growth to bloom”. The Prime Minister later added: “A change in the economic weather can only ever come from a supply-side expansion of the nation’s productive power.
“In the 1980s, the Thatcher government deregulated finance capital. In the New Labour era, globalisation increased the opportunities for trade. This is our equivalent.”. Ms Reeves’ speech in Oxfordshire on Wednesday is expected to lay out plans for projects around the Oxford and Cambridge region, as well as confirm support for the expansion of Heathrow Airport and reiterate the Government’s backing for the redevelopment of Old Trafford.
