Lords Grand Committee
3 November 2026
Contents updated on 4 Nov 2026
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Lords Grand Committee House of Lords
Follow its sittings00:05 - 00:31
Speaker 1
My Lords, I have to remind your Lordships that if there is a division in the chamber while we're sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the division bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes. Motion for debate, report from the Industry and Regulators Committee, Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town.
00:31 - 01:38
Speaker 2
What a welcome. And I do rise to move that we take note of our Committee's report, which is called Time is Money, how regulators can support growth. And in doing so, I'd like to pay tribute to our Committee staff: to Rhiannon Williams and Dominic Cooper, together with the invaluable support from an NAO secondee, Sarah Piercy, and Committee members, including the noble Baronesses, ladies Harding and Valentine, and noble Lords Fuller and Adney-Lister, who you'll hear from today, together with Baroness Carberry and Lord Kamall, who are also on the Committee we might hear from today, but also we're going to hear from Lord Chandos, my noble friend Lord Chandos, who was in at the start of the process, though he did then escape for good behavior. And in fact I could start with an apology to my noble friend Lord Smith of Finsbury for misnaming his former organisation the FSA, obviously the agent not the authority agency, not the authority, in the table on page 11.
01:38 - 02:56
Speaker 3
To confess, it was him that spotted that, not me. Maybe I could also thank the then relevant ministers, notably and significantly both from the Treasury and from the business department: my noble friend Lord Livermore and the MP Blair McDougall for appearing in front of the Committee, as indeed the noble Lord Willetts, who was enormous assistance to our work. The report examines the Government's attempt to help boost the growth its growth objective by its action plan for regulators, an objection objective I'm sure the Committee will surely share. Writing in the Times on Saturday, however, the Chancellor did admit that growth cannot be commanded from Whitehall, but that it could be helped by removing the barriers that hold back investment and by bringing down costs and bureaucracy, and ministers judge that includes regulation. That led to the question that we asked as to the impact regulation can have either in encouraging or facilitating growth, and whether the Government's action plan will help regulators to achieve this objective.
02:56 - 03:47
Speaker 4
Done well, regulation can boost consumer confidence, it can provide a level playing field that helps competition, and it can project help provide certainty to businesses and investors, whether from here or abroad. Done badly, of course, regulation, particularly if it's slow, can cause uncertainty, costs, delays to new products, services and infrastructure. It can harm the comma economy, and it can disadvantage consumers by denying them cheaper, improved, or indeed new products. Whilst our Committee welcomed the intention of the Government's action plan, it wasn't always empower apparent what this meant for individual regulators whose responsibilities can differ greatly.
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