The Costs and Benefits of Business Regulation

Summary

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The Bottom Line – The Costs and Benefits of Business Regulation

BBC Radio 4 | Host: Evan Davis | Date: July 2, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Evan Davis and three guests delve into the ever-contentious topic of business regulation in the UK—asking why processes are slow, costs are high, and whether the regulatory system is fit for purpose. With a new Prime Minister promising business-friendly policies, the panel debates how to balance necessary safeguards with the need for economic growth, drawing on real-world examples from nuclear power to ‘cake sheds’ and tech startups, and reflecting on political, societal, and practical drivers of red tape.

Panel:

• John Fingleton – Founder, Fingleton Consultancy; former head of Office of Fair Trading
• Polly Dhaliwal – COO, Enterprise Nation; member of the Small Business Regulatory Taskforce
• David Buttress – Entrepreneur, co-founder of Just Eat, former CEO of OVO Energy

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The High Costs and Slow Pace of UK Regulation

Opening Example (Roads & Nuclear):

• The UK's Lower Thames Crossing planning cost (£300 million) exceeded Norway’s spend on building the world’s second-longest road tunnel. (01:15–02:00)
• Hinkley Point C’s nuclear build cost far outstrips France's for similar standards.
• "We have developed a whole set of environmental and planning regulations... very process oriented and they result in some absurd decisions... 700 million spent on a fish deterrence system at Hinkley." — John Fingleton (03:24)

Process Over Outcomes:

• Regulatory processes become overly complicated, focusing spending on consultants and legalities rather than real-world environmental or safety outcomes.
• Example: The cost per protected bat in HS2: £330k, compared to £100 if handled by a wildlife charity. (03:24–04:20)

Health & Safety Culture:

• "We increasingly want to live in a zero risk society… at 70mph you can say it would be safer at 60, and when you get down to 10, you’d lose the purpose of the motorway. That’s sort of what we’ve done with nuclear." — John Fingleton (04:20–05:15)

Fragmentation:

• Multiple overlapping regulators create delay and escalate costs; six regulators for just the fish issue in the Hinkley project (05:15–06:00)

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2. Regulation for Small Businesses – The Cake Shed Example

SMEs Hit Disproportionately:

• New regulations intended for restaurants are also applied to local “cake sheds”—individuals selling cakes from a shed or stall part-time.
• "You’ve got young people trying to be innovative… the energy is zapped out when the trading license hits them and it outweighs whatever they’re making that month." — Polly Dhaliwal (08:59)

Cost & Red Tape:

• Average annual regulatory compliance cost to a sole trader: £7,000; national impact ~£36 billion. (06:50–07:20)

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3. Regulation and the Political Environment

Stability and Perception:

• "In the last 10 years, I feel like the UK’s almost Gerald Ratnered ourselves… It’s very difficult to operate businesses in that environment." — David Buttress (10:01)
• Unstable policy environments and slow engagement deter business investment and listing, as exemplified in comparison between Just Eat’s successful UK IPO and Revolut's delayed banking license (11:17–12:00)

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4. The “Zero Risk Mentality” & Societal Responses

Martin’s Law as a Case Study:

• Post-tragedy regulation: After the Manchester Arena bombing, all venues required complex anti-terror plans.
• Regulatory Policy Committee found estimated costs 100–500x higher than the calculated benefit—£3,000 to £52,000 per venue. (13:08–13:40)
• "When you have a victim or group of victims... there’s a real feeling something must be done." — John Fingleton (13:08)

Small Business Strain:

• "We're treating a Brixton Academy the same as a local wine bar that can accommodate 20 people… We’re here to comply, but give us some help with how." — Polly Dhaliwal (14:10)

Trade-offs Hidden:

• "The benefit is very clear… The cost, which is kind of just hidden somewhere in the prices people will be paying ultimately, is less visible." — Evan Davis (14:47)
• "We have to accept some degree of personal risk." — David Buttress (16:27)

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5. As Affluence Grows, So Does Regulation

• Richer societies demand higher standards for safety, the environment, and amenities, valuing public goods (like a nice view or noise reduction) more. (16:32–17:17)
• "We've probably swung too far in that... we go about in the most cumbersome, process-oriented way." — John Fingleton (17:17)
• Regulation also used as a substitute for taxation—easier for politicians to promise (17:45)

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6. Where Regulation Harms the Most

Employment Law:

• New Employment Rights Act impacts SMEs—blanket application creates confusion and administrative burden.
• "Our small business owners are struggling... where does a small business go to understand what will impact them?” — Polly Dhaliwal (18:35)

Gig Economy Debate:

• Regulation risks being shaped by bad examples, leading to rules that overreach and stifle growth.
• "You can always find bad examples... but the danger is you throw a very beautiful baby out with the bathwater." — David Buttress (20:34)

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7. How Can Regulators Listen and Do Better?

Feedback & Accountability:

• US ‘Red Tape Hotline’ and Germany’s equivalent cited as ways to focus on genuine red tape pain points via complaint volume. (21:46–22:46)
• "These things work... you have a moan, but it works." — Polly Dhaliwal

Evaluating Regulation Upfront:

• The UK’s Regulatory Policy Committee is meant to assess costs/benefits but is "routinely ignored." — John Fingleton (23:21)
• "Regulation arguably has as big an impact on the economy as taxation… why is the Regulatory Policy Committee not more binding on politicians?" (23:21)

Innovation Stifled by Old Rules:

• Example: UK drone delivery companies lost global advantage due to outdated aviation rules, while China now leads. (24:53–26:09)

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8. Are the UK’s Regulatory Problems Unique?

• Response to tragedy and preference for regulation is common in developed countries, but the US allows higher personal risk even when wealthy—possibly due to different political structures. (26:32)

Enforcement Gaps:

• There are also areas where regulation exists but doesn’t work—e.g., e-bike enforcement. (27:01)

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9. What Should Change?

Include Those Affected:

• "Bring startups, sole founders, small businesses on the journey... bring the right community in right at the start of the journey." — Polly Dhaliwal (27:28)

Sunset Clauses:

• Automatic expiration dates for regulations could help, though hard to implement. More important is systematic evaluation and removal of ineffective rules. (27:49–28:48)

Political Leadership and Transparency:

• Better communication of trade-offs to the public, and raising the status of regulatory review committees. (30:50)

Political Incentives:

• "Why are you unpopular for not regulating, rather than for over-regulating? That is the political asymmetry." — Evan Davis (31:13)
• "We live in a world now where you’re more rewarded for not making a decision, kicking the can and doing nothing, than you are for being brave." — David Buttress (31:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Assuming the trains kill every bat, it’s £330,000 per bat... a bat charity could create a habitat for 1,000 bats for £100,000, or £100 per bat." — John Fingleton (03:24)
• "You’ve got young people... trying to be innovative, and all of a sudden the energy is zapped out when the trading license hits them." — Polly Dhaliwal (09:04)
• "The UK needs to be healthily paranoid around the perception of the UK when you think about growing and scaling business." — David Buttress (12:08)
• "The cost was between 100 and 500 times the benefit of Martin’s Law." — John Fingleton (13:08)
• "There’s a huge trade-off...as you move towards zero risk." — David Buttress (16:02)
• "Regulation is often a substitution for taxation." — John Fingleton (17:45)
• "When you start, businesses grow super quickly...you can always find bad examples... The danger is you throw a very beautiful baby out with the bathwater." — David Buttress (20:34)
• "Why the Regulatory Policy Committee doesn’t have the same status as the OBR?" — John Fingleton (23:21)
• "China... is now operating at scale [with drones]—that’s where regulation costs you. We will never get it back now." — David Buttress (25:05)
• "Bring the right community in... right at the start of the journey and then you can communicate it in a much more positive way." — Polly Dhaliwal (27:28)
• "If Andy Burnham tackles regulatory barriers... He can do 30% more of it and bring it on faster." — John Fingleton (33:32)

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Timestamps – Key Segments

• 01:15–06:20: UK examples of regulatory cost/delay (roads, nuclear, Hinkley, HS2)
• 06:50–09:32: Impact of regulation on small businesses (cake sheds)
• 10:01–12:08: Political stability, startups, and the regulatory environment
• 13:08–16:32: Martin’s Law, zero risk mentality, and disproportionate burdens
• 16:32–18:17: Affluence, societal attitudes, and regulatory paternalism
• 18:35–21:14: Specific regulatory areas causing difficulty (employment, gig economy)
• 21:46–23:21: How to focus effort: ‘Red Tape Hotline’ and UK’s Regulatory Policy Committee
• 24:51–26:09: Innovation stifled: drones and regulatory inertia
• 27:28–28:48: Solutions: engagement, sunset clauses
• 30:50–31:34: Political incentives and accountability
• 32:20–33:32: What a new PM should tackle: practical, high-profile reforms

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Conclusion

The episode brings out the systemic nature of regulatory “creep” in the UK, the hidden but enormous costs, and the trade-offs that are seldom surfaced to the public when new rules are created. The panel is united on the need for smarter, targeted regulation—engaging affected communities early, raising the profile of cost-benefit analysis, and maintaining political courage to prune red tape in service of economic growth.

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For more episodes and feedback: bottomlinebc.co.uk

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Transcript

[David Buttress]

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[Evan Davis]

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[Evan Davis]

Hello and thank you for joining us at the Bottom Line podcast. Now we always do like to recommend episodes from the back catalog so such as the one from the start of this year which had the heading what is the UK good at? But as we sit here now and we await the arrival of another new Prime Minister who will probably say economic growth is a big priority and who espouses business friendly socialism, this is a particularly opportune moment to delve into an issue that increasingly frustrates the business folk who you talk to. Their charge is we over regulate. In fact, not just over regulate, but we're sometimes slow to regulate, so decisions can take a very long time. Now I'll give you some examples of cases that have perhaps become legendary because planning and building, for example, are areas often quoted. And take the road project, the Lower Thames Crossing, which has long been seen as necessary by successive governments. Well as The Eye report it, 300 million has been spent by National Highways on the planning application alone. That that's more than Norway spent on designing, planning and building the world's second longest road tunnel. Or take another example, which is the regime designed to shore up the failures exposed by the Grenfell fire. We have a new regulator, the building safety regulator. It has to essentially approve plans for tall buildings, but its decisions, at least at one point, were taking 43 weeks and that has caused snarl ups in construction. Now everyone recognises the need for Regulation, but can we in this country do it more effectively? And we have three guests to talk us through this. First up is John Fingleton, who used to be in charge of the office of Fair Trading, now has his own consultancy called Fingleton, which helps businesses navigate regulatory challenges. And John, you also wrote a pretty substantial report for the UK government on nuclear regulation, on what is going wrong with the construction of nuclear in this country. Because all we know is that we are spending much more on building Hinkley Point C than the French pay for the same thing.

[John Fingleton]

So I guess there's three types of problem with nuclear, but they exist across lots of other sectors as well. One is environmental and planning, where we have developed a whole set of environmental and planning regulations. They're very process oriented and they result in some absurd decisions. So, 700 million spent on a fish to deterrence system at Hinkley. Now, not all 700 million was just to protect for fish, but we calculated for protected fish it was about £250,000 per protected fish saved by each fish. Yeah. And you know, for each bat on the HS2 bat tunnel, it's 330,000. Assuming the trains kill every bat, it's 330,000 per bat. And we know that, for example, a bat charity was able to create a habitat for 1,000 bats for £100,000. That's about £100 per bat. So we have, in one part of the system, we put a value on the life of a bat of 330,000, another part of the system, 100 pounds. And the economist in me thinks there must be a way of rebalancing that. And when you look at it in more detail, what you discover, this shouldn't be a battle between development and the environment. It is that we're spending all the money on consultants and lawyers and process rather than actually on nature conservation. The second issue is this excessive health and safety culture that we've developed. So we increasingly want to live in a zero risk society and we talk about some of the drivers of regulation coming from victims, but we essentially become excessively safe. So every time somebody sees something and says, well, couldn't this be safer? We say yes, and we don't count the cost. So the analogy I use to explain this is that at 70 miles an hour on the motorway, you can say it would be safer at 60 and it would at 60 you could say it'd be safer at 50. At 50, 40. And so when you get down to 10, you'd lose the purpose of the motorway. And that's sort of what we've done with nuclear. The third issue that comes up is that there are many different regulators. So for example, with Hinckley and Fish, there were two English environmental regulators, two Welsh ones, a maritime regulator, and then over that, the Office of Environmental Protection. So that's six regulators just for one issue. And we're not talking about the nuclear regulation. So you've got how each individual regulator works. And I think one of the things that people really underestimate is the cost of regulatory delay on businesses. So businesses.

[Evan Davis]

So this is the slow. Is it slow to get a decision?

[John Fingleton]

Slow to get a decision. And the sort of slowness in the decision has a huge cost on the supply chain because you're geared up to do a 10 billion ban project. And if it's delayed by a year, everybody in the supply chain is delayed by a year. And so it's very disruptive. Those are the sort of issues that I think came up in nuclear, but actually they come up in house building, road building, the extension of airports, reservoirs, we desperately need reservoirs and sewage overfills. But, you know, people are talking about building reservoirs now and delivery dates of 2035 or 2040. And I'm going, why? Why can't we build them in two or three years? And a lot of it's regulation.

[Evan Davis]

Yeah, okay, so that is a really good starting point for this discussion. And what you've said sort of chimes with the complaints one hears businesses making. Lots of listeners will be saying, I don't want nuclear power stations, they're dangerous. And I do want fish. And we're going to have to come back to this kind of whole issue of costs, benefits, how you put a value on the life of a protected fish and such like. But let me introduce my next guest, Polly Dhaliwal, who's chief operating officer for a group called Enterprise Nation. Tell us what Enterprise Nation is.

[Polly Dhaliwal]

Polly First, Enterprise Nation. We are a small business support community. We're on a simple mission to build a more entrepreneurial society. But more specifically, we're here to represent the voice of small business owners. So when John talks about the cost and time involved in regulation for small businesses, it costs a business £7,000 on average. And we're talking about sole traders here, the plumber, the local estate agent, a year. When it comes to regulation, admin burden, that costs the economy 36 billion a year.

[Evan Davis]

Give me an example. We've had lots of examples from John, really, of a very big industry, nuclear industry being regulated. Give me an example from the sort of Small business sector that vexes you.

[Polly Dhaliwal]

Yeah, let's go from nuclear to cake sheds from sounds like someone's massive career switch. This was something. So I also sit on the small business Regulatory Task force within UK government, which is a task force which is on a very short, timely Sprint to deliver 10 rapid changes to regulations which affect very niche small businesses. Cake sheds being one of just talk

[Evan Davis]

what is a cake shed and what

[Polly Dhaliwal]

so a cake shed specifically is you might have them in your local town or village where essentially a local entrepreneur, a local baker bakes cakes, bakes loaves of bread in their kitchen. In their kitchen and they essentially find a disused space on the local high street in their village and they pop their cakes in the morning. They have a either put a value on the cake or they will say donate whatever you think this cake is worth once you, you eat it and you tap your card and you can pay for that cake. Now they've been going on for years, but as of two months ago it hit the news that a thousand odd cake sheds that we have, and these are individuals who have these as side hustles. They will now be hit by the same regulations that restaurant owners have on high streets and local traders who are trading out of a van selling burgers. It's a similar license that they will have. So we went out to our community and wow, did we have uproar from the local cake shed entrepreneurs. Now some, some ARG said actually the cakes that I'm eating, I want the right regulation when it comes to hygiene standards completely here.

[Evan Davis]

Yeah, well I was going to say I, I, I don't want them made in rat infested premises.

[Polly Dhaliwal]

However, what I don't think they should be hit with because most of these are making maybe £500amonth, £1,000amonth. Not a small amount, but not a substantial amount to hit them with a trading license that they have to pay now to the local council. So this is where I feel we've got young people who, who are trying to be innovative, try to start a side hu and all of a sudden the energy is zapped out when the trading license hits them and it outweighs whatever they're making that month. So what's the point of continuing?

[Evan Davis]

Okay, so that is a good example, but you're sitting on a government body trying to reduce regulation and actually, memo to self, we must talk about why these efforts to reduce regulation often seem to never come to anything. But maybe you'll tell me they do. But look, let's introduce our third guest who is an entrepreneur. David Buttress, co founder of Just Eat, former Chief Executive of OVO Energy do you find regulation in your business life gets in the way? Give me an example.

[David Buttress]

For me, over the last, I guess 20 years I've had a very mixed experience of regulation. I think I would say in the last 10 years I feel like the UK's almost Gerald Ratnered ourself with not providing sort of a stable, clear environment for business to operate in. And I think that's largely political. Over the last 10 years you've all seen the change in Prime Ministers, change in personalities, which means changes in policy. It's very difficult to operate businesses in that environment. I think the UK needs to think about that really deeply because when we were building just eid, we were a late stage private equity company at some point in 2010-13 and we were minded to list the business on the London Stock Exchange and the then, and this is not a political point, but the late New Labour government into the David Cameron coalition government, they were incredibly proactive about engaging with us and with the London Stock Exchange Exchange, obviously the regulated financial environment of a listing in getting us to list in the uk, because we thought about listing in the US that decade, the London technology scene was vibrant. We had an open borders policy for attracting talent, attracting technology business from Estonia, for example, the Skype entrepreneurs, Scandinavia, et cetera. So we were really bringing in a lot of talent and I think creating a lot of investment for the uk. And then if you jump forward for the last decade and then you look at an example like Revolut, Revolut is

[Evan Davis]

I think an online bank, it's a star, it's worth tens of billions of dollars now as a global company.

[David Buttress]

Yeah, it's probably the most successful, valuable technology company in Europe. From an entrepreneurial, observational perspective. When I compared it to our experience at just eid, how difficult it was for them to get a banking license, it does reflect something and this is the point. I want to draw out the perception of the UK, therefore over the last 10 years by examples like Revolut. Finding it really difficult to do business here in the UK creates an impression that the UK is a tough place to do business, that it's hard as a startup to scale up and stay in the regulatory environment. Ultimately they were successful, of course, and I think that's brilliant for the UK and brilliant for Revolut. But I do think when you couple it up with the political environment we've had the last decade, there is something for UK PLC to Be healthily paranoid around the perception of the UK when you think about growing and scaling business this year.

[Evan Davis]

Yeah, well, look, let's open this up because you have a problem, and then someone says, we need a regulation to deal with that problem. You know, a tragic and a very interesting example was a thing called Martin's Law, which was a regulation of venues to make sure they had plans to deal with terrorist attacks. It came out of the Ariana Grande concert in 2015, where many people died, including a young man called Martin Hett. And this law was named after him. And indeed, his mother was absolutely, you know, phenomenal in campaigning for this law. So all venues have to have a plan, really, for dealing with an attack. And one can see how you have a tragedy and then you have a regulatory response. There was a massive consensus, as I understood it, in favor of that regulatory response. Now you will hear people saying it went way too far. We've got tiny venues having to make big plans for terrorist attacks and it's costing them a lot. Talk me through what is going on as a society where that happens.

[John Fingleton]

So the Regulatory Policy Committee looked at this before the law was implemented and calculated that the cost was between 100 and 500 times the benefit of Martin's Law. Martin's Law, and that the cost per premises varied in their two scenarios between £3,000 per premises to £52,000 per premises. So we knew before the law was implemented that it was hugely costly. The problem you have is that when you have a victim or group of victims, that there's a real feeling something must be done to go back and trace precisely what sequence of events led to that accident and what intervention would have stopped that accident. We need to get better at working with victims. I think, generally, and it's not just in this country. I advise the Australian government on regulation, and we have exactly the same thing in Australia. How you harness the energy and commitment of victims to make the world a better place into a way of doing that that actually is beneficial for society. Because I think all the evidence is that on counterterrorism, putting a small amount more money into the security services would have had equal benefit to this huge cost for premises.

[Polly Dhaliwal]

I think one thing that I really want to challenge on that I agree on Martin's Law specifically, there is a need for a regulation there. But how the regulators treat small business the same as big business. Our biggest challenge here, we are treating a Brixton Academy venue the same as a local wine bar that can probably accommodate 20 to 25 people in the the evening. They don't have HR departments and legal departments to deal with this. And I think that's often our biggest challenge from small businesses. We're here to comply, but give us some help with how we comply.

[Evan Davis]

Martin's Law is on your radar as well?

[Polly Dhaliwal]

Yes, completely. Yeah.

[Evan Davis]

But. But John's basic premise is that there is a tendency to a zero risk mentality when you're framing the reg. And a reason why you get away with the zero risk mentality is that the benefit is very clear. We'll have fewer accidents and deaths. The cost, which is kind of just hidden somewhere in the prices people will be paying ultimately is less visible, perhaps. So there's just always an incentive to go too far. Is that true? To go too far towards zero risk?

[David Buttress]

Honestly, I think we're already there. If I look at the growth in our economy, if I look at job creation, I think those are the things they have to be balanced with as well as the culture of the country. So I think we've convinced ourselves as a society that to some degree that is accidentally the society we've all sort of created the last five, six years post Covid. And I think then it makes a really tough job for regulators because once you start to create regulations, they have to be regulated. That requires people, time, resource, money. That then also then requires business then to engage in people time and money. That, by the way, doesn't go into growth, doesn't go into other areas. Now it's of course a necessary part of building a business. You have to comply with regulation. But I really strongly believe that we've gone too far the other way and we have to accept.

[Evan Davis]

Towards regulation.

[David Buttress]

Yeah, because we have to understand the trade off. There's a trade off, there's a huge trade off between. As you move towards the great analogy of 70, 60, 50, which I completely agree with, you know, the danger is, you know, we all end up like Wales with 20 miles an hour and it's like traveling by cart 100 years ago when you drive around car different than you.

[Evan Davis]

But I grew up these things.

[John Fingleton]

No, sorry, we've got there, I have gone there.

[Evan Davis]

But anyway, that is a very, very big discussion.

[David Buttress]

The point being that we have to accept some degree of personal risk.

[Evan Davis]

I always feel it's very easy for us to say we are an affluent economy, first world economy, where now we become a bit fussy about being cheap with life or sort of allowing people to be run over or to fall into, you know, dangerous equipment at work. So we tighten these things up as we Become more affluent. China, well, until very recently, have not been as affluent. And in those countries, you put less of a value on the lovely view that someone has from their house and whether someone can build in front of it. You put less of a value on the noise pollution from aeroplanes. You just don't worry about those things as much because you're not as well off. And John, haven't we just become now rich enough to start being fussy about safety at work in the way that we might not have been in Victorian?

[John Fingleton]

So I think there's two things. First of all, I think we've gone far too far on paternalism in the sense that whether it's safety announcements, the fact that when, for example, traffic lights now in London seem to have a bigger gap between the red on one side and the green on the other side and the junction which is where the bottleneck is used less and less often. So we've got to the stage now where people cannot be trusted to step out on the street. So I think we have probably swung too far in that it's not to say that we shouldn't be protecting life and safety. The second thing is how we do it. We go about in the most cumbersome, process oriented way and there must be lighter ways of doing these things. And the other thing that people miss in this, one of the big drivers is regulation is often a substitution for taxation. So government departments want to do things, they have no control over taxation, but they have control over regulation. So politicians promise before elections regulatory solutions to problems because they know they can't promise taxation ones. And then when they come in, they implement them.

[Evan Davis]

Can I just ask you which categories? I mean, we've talked about competition, regulation, we've talked about, about planning and we've talked about a little bit about health and safety. Where is this manifesting itself? You all seem to think it's a problem. Give me the kind of categories of regulation that are problematic from our side.

[Polly Dhaliwal]

The Employment Rights act which has just come in would be the biggest challenge for small businesses at the moment. Look, it's very pro employees, but our small business owners are really struggling in terms of, and again, I reiterate, they're happy to comply. But where does one small business go to understand what will impact them? So for us, we're seeing the Employment Rights act will affect millions, but they're not sure where to go and when it comes in. And how is it going to affect the local florists versus the 250 manufacturing company? So everything just feels blanket. In terms of communication. So it's. The communication is missing.

[Evan Davis]

Employment. Employment law is an area. David, what would you cite as the kind of the big problematic areas in the uk?

[David Buttress]

Well, I think we should start regulating Prime Minister change. That feels like I think worth regulating and controlling a bit better than we have the last 10 years. No, I would definitely agree with that. If you think about job creation in the uk, all of us have a vested interest in that because for the next generations coming through, I think if you look at unemployment between 18 and under 25, it's a real issue for the UK. Lack of productivity, lack of job opportunity. It's not like certainly when I was leaving university and you could almost choose what job you were going to go into. Not quite, but not far. And I really do worry about that. The Employment Act's a big issue. And then you couple that to national insurance rises which I know is not regulatory, but I would really focus on that because especially for small local employers who were genuinely trying to employ young people into part time casual labor and if you look in food delivery, something close to my heart, that's a really big area of employment now. Amazon, just eat Uber, etc. All in this area. The gig economy that's throwing it back at you.

[Evan Davis]

I think a lot of people will say it's under regulated. There are bikes riding around who are obviously not allowed to be employed here. They're, they're self employed. So there's no proper minimum wage enforcement for the kind of self employed people who are really pass their passes around. So you don't really know who's delivering this stuff. I'm just throwing back at you the claim that will be made of an

[David Buttress]

area in which you're of course and you know there is significant amount of regulation that's coming as a result of that in the gig economy. But the real issue is we look at the edge bad examples to then regulate all. And if you think about companies like just e, they employ 8,000 people. It's the significant employers. So of course you can always find these examples when you start. Businesses grow super quickly where they mess up or they cock up a regulation or they don't comply. Of course they will always be. But the danger is you throw a very beautiful baby out with the bath water which is creating job creation and growth of the economy. Great, great customer experience. So we have to just be careful. Not everything should lead to regulation because it does slow things down and it does cost money. That's the point.

[Evan Davis]

My question to you all is how does A government tell the difference between a business person who has a legitimate case that the regulation is not cost effective, is highly inhibiting activity for no particularly good reason, and the case where the business person is just pleading because they'd rather be able to do what they want. How do we have a constructive conversation about this if we can agree that some regulation is not working and and all of us agreed that a lot of regulation is necessary?

[Polly Dhaliwal]

The question is how does government know where to focus its time per department? So we often look at other countries and in the States they have something called the Small Business Administration's office and they have something called the Office of Advocacy. They have a red tape hotline. And essentially that's where the Small Business Administration's office, the sba, spend the most amount of time based on the volume of calls based on a red tape regulation.

[Evan Davis]

So hang on, how does that work? You're just going to get people phoning up saying these tax returns are too complicated or I'm how does it work? The red tape hotline, what happens?

[Polly Dhaliwal]

So it's exactly that if you have 3 million small businesses, you can have a bit of a whine and a moan, but if you have 3 million small businesses who complain to say the hotline for HMRC is incredibly cumbersome. Takes a lot of my time as a small business. Every single month or every single year, HMRC department, you should focus your efforts on simplifying the helpline.

[Evan Davis]

We're getting a lot of complaints about X. Exactly.

[Polly Dhaliwal]

And this is where government need to focus their time. How do they define where to spend their time? So something like that could be really useful. Germany have something similar. And so government are actually tasked from their small business plan, they want to reduce regulation burden by 25. That's a big number. Germany have already done it by creating one of these offices. The US have maintained 25 reduction. So these things work. You can have a mine and wine and a moan, but it works. So I think we could do something similar in that vein.

[Evan Davis]

But I'm pushing on this point about how we distinguish between the kind of the good complaints and the not so good complaints.

[John Fingleton]

We have something called the Regulatory Policy Committee, which is a committee inside the business department that tries to assess the costs and benefits of regulation as they're going through the legislative process. It is routinely ignored. Regulation arguably has as big an impact on the economy as taxation. Why the Regulatory Policy Committee doesn't have the same status as the the Office of Budget responsibility and why it's not more binding on politicians because the idea that politicians can decide we're going to implement this law when, for example, in response to understandable sympathy with a victim without actually understanding what the consequences are and then binding themselves to it early on in the process. So I would advocate that we bring that in earlier and we elevate the status of.

[Evan Davis]

And they. Ultimately, that's a kind of mix of economists you've got got. It's not just a bunch of doing

[John Fingleton]

proper cost benefit, doing proper cost benefit analysis, because you need to assess each of these things. I think one other area that then is ignored completely in our system up until recently is the whole role of innovation. So, for example, I was very involved with Innovate UK and we had a lot of money going into drones in extreme environments back in 2017, 2018, 2019. But rules in this country, regulations, whether it was the Civilization Authority or the underlying rules, wouldn't allow drones to be flown out of line of sight. So actually UK lost some of its strategic advantage in drones and now it turns out drones are incredibly important in military technology and the UK failed to sort of see that advantage. There's no business arguing for that because it's an industry. Hasn't yet.

[Evan Davis]

It didn't exist. Yeah.

[John Fingleton]

Right now the government has set up a regulatory innovation office and they're setting up an AI growth lab. So they're beginning to tackle some of this. So I think there are some positive things happening, happening. But we, we. It's not always that business complains when there's a problem with regulation.

[David Buttress]

That. That drone point's a great point, by the way, because in 2017, Just Eat had a ground delivery drone in Greenwich as an experiment with Starship Ventures, an Estonian technology business. And, and it couldn't leave line of sight. It was a ground delivery drone, but it basically, it was completely pointless because we had to send someone with it to be watching. It's like, well, we might as well just send a person on a bike. Let's do that. So, but, but, but the reason why I thought that was I was in Shenzhen in China just a few weeks ago and this is a great example where regulation costs you. So 10 years ago, that was the UK technology company with Starship Ventures from Estonia deploying that in Greenwich in southeast London. It's nowhere, it's gone nowhere. China 10 years ago was nowhere. On this. I was in Shenzhen, like I said a couple of weeks ago, there are literally airborne delivery drones delivering parcels and food in real time everywhere in Shenzhen. They're buzzing over your head. Literally Shenzhen, the Chinese government has put that as the place from a regulatory perspective to test this technology. And it's everywhere at SC and it's an example where you lose strategic position and we will never get it back now because China is not just about the AI, the technology and the drone technology which is now operating at scale.

[Evan Davis]

Well, John, you tell me. I mean, you mentioned Australia. I sort of feel the dynamics of if we have over regulation, if there's a kind of pressure to regulate, I don't feel we are exceptional. I think you will find that in most countries, most wealthy countries, yeah, with no grant, respond to tragedies the same way that we do. The political dynamics, are they not the same? Are we different to anywhere else?

[John Fingleton]

I think you're right about Australia and in fact a lot of continental Europe and the whole debate about Brexit was we were over regulated. But turns out that the moment we left we're perfectly capable of exceeding EU standards in lots of areas. But it is interesting that America seems to manage to do this differently, whether it's because of the inability of Congress to legislate, but America seems to to allow individual risk at a higher level than we do even in the very wealthy society. And so I think that's a, that's a curiosity.

[Evan Davis]

I think everyone would agree that there are areas where we have a lot of regulation doesn't even work. I mean the E bikes, it is regulated but you still get, you know, bad things happening with E bikes running on pavements and the like. So there are lots of areas where we are regulating and it still doesn't work. So I want to just focus the last part of this on, on how we do it better. We've got a regulatory policy committee. John wants them to be listened to. So that's an idea with your small business hat on, Polly, what would be your take?

[Polly Dhaliwal]

A solution would be bring startups, sole founders, small businesses on the journey, bring the right community in regard to that regulation that it will impact right at the start of the journey and then you can communicate that in a much more positive way rather than government versus small business, it's actually small businesses created this regulation, they shaped it and it's in action.

[Evan Davis]

What about the idea of saying every new regulation brought into law exists for 12 years, at which point it expires unless it's renewed. So you have a kind of automatic sunset clauses. Do they work?

[John Fingleton]

Well, I think it's difficult to implement in practice. We had during the Cameron Osborne period, that coalition government, we had a one in, one out or one in, two out. But it was sort of like, okay, well I'll bring in one grape and throw out an orange and an apple. But it was like, you can't compare like and like with these things. It's quite difficult to do. I think you need a much more systemic program of just looking at the impact of the regulation on the businesses and on consumers and then asking how do we think about what are the low hanging fruit and get rid of them. But sunset clauses could be part of it. I think with some legislation, like with Martin's Law or something, you could have done a sunset clause. I would have had it shorter than 12 years. I might have had it for three years and I might have had built in a proper evaluation of it after two years to see what the impact was.

[Evan Davis]

But my overriding impression listening to this is how difficult this is because I hear where you all are and I hear all the time and absolutely get that this gets in the way of growth and we want growth to pay for more things that we want. So I get that. But just about every individual thing I hear, I think, you know, I think the public will take a lot of persuading that we don't need clean air zones in cities so that the kids don't, you know, kids don't get asthma. I sort of feel the public do want workers rights at work. They're not kind of. They don't want exploitative employers and they do want health and safety. They want planning rules. Honestly, the opposition to planning is not the regulations, it's the lobbies that are created against every individual idea that is created for putting a building here, there or anywhere you find there are people, actual people, who don't want that building there. And what politics and regulations having to do the whole time is arbitrary between a public who are actually clamoring for a lot of this stuff. And it's easy to say don't do it or listen to the regulatory policy committee. But actually it is the public that are calling for regulation.

[John Fingleton]

But then the public is picking up the bill and I don't know the public is assessing when it's calling for the regulation what it's going to cost them. And that's, I think the dilemma is that people think, oh well, it's costly for me to have this, but in act. So it's a bit like the public saying, well, I'd like lower taxes provided they go on somebody else else. And when everybody does that, we get higher taxes for everybody. So I think that the problem is better leadership and better Consistency. I think one of the other things that I think as a consumer is a problem is that we have very, very different standards. So, for example, you get overcompensated, arguably, if something goes wrong in financial services, but if your plane is canceled, you have this merry dance with the airline as to what the cause of the delay was before you get your composition. And if it's trains, it's different than planes and so on. So the actual redress and protection rules across all our different markets are so different that actually consumers probably demand more regulation simply because there's so much inconsistency.

[Evan Davis]

Yeah.

[David Buttress]

But come back to it, you know, accountability and transparency as a society, you can share with society now very easily the trade offs. So if you want a clean air zone, here's the trade off. This is what it costs, this is what it'll mean for you. So as a society, we've got to get better and our politicians have got to get better at it. I fear that they won't because it makes them less popular. And we live in a world where second, you become unpopular as a politician, now you're dead.

[Evan Davis]

Why are you unpopular? For not regulating rather than for over regulating. So that is, you've hit it. That is the political asymmetry that politicians, I think, feel they face. I'm going to be more damned if I don't do this than if I do do it. So they do it and then John will come along and write a report saying, but this cost you 500 times more than this. The.

[David Buttress]

And the problem, I'm afraid the answer to that question lies in yes, Prime Minister, which is when Humphrey always used to say, that's very brave of you, Prime Minister, which is to make a decision and to take risk. And so, you know, that's the answer to it. We live in a world now, unfortunately, we've created, whereby if someone makes a decision and takes risk, you're more rewarded perversely for not making a decision, kicking the can and doing nothing than you are for being brave and making decision.

[Evan Davis]

Last question. Andy Burnham, as we sit here, very likely to be Prime Minister, let's be honest, should this be an issue for him because he is trying to espouse this creed of business friendly socialism, he might be tilting a bit to the left. We'll find out which political direction he's in. But if you were he, would you sort of try and make this an

[Polly Dhaliwal]

area of reform, in short? Yes, absolutely. Regulation impacts the public, but small businesses are the public. We often try and disperse between the two but there are a lot of individuals who have side hustles, sole traders who are the public who are impacted by regulation. But if I was Andy Burnham and I've been tasked in the small business plan written out in ink, that 25% of regulation should be reduced to reduce the cost to small businesses every year, if he can get that through quicker, and I think part of this task force will be sent to the new pm, that would be a massive tick and sign in the right direction.

[David Buttress]

What I would say is, you know, is the economy stupid, and if you want to win the next election, he's going to need growth. If you look, why have we partly had a revolving door of Prime Ministers? It's just because people feel poorer and they are poorer and there's less jobs and their children are struggling to find work and they're very worried about the impact of AI. So I think if Andy Burnham wants to win the next election, he will absolutely need growth. So why he should care about it is for that simple reason. And if he doesn't, then I suspect he might not even make it the next election, given the way politics works in a minute. But if he does, then I think you'd have a good, very good chance of winning the next election. So that's why you should care.

[Evan Davis]

Last word, John.

[John Fingleton]

We estimated that nuclear is 30% more expensive here than in France, which has the same standards as we do. Essentially, if Andy Burnham tackles regulatory barriers to both the delay and the cost and brings down the cost of building infrastructure by 30%, he can do 30% more of it and bring it on faster. And you just like the really clear example politically is getting reservoirs built faster, getting storm overflows built faster, but talking about 10 years and them costing 30, 40% more than they should, that's where he should be putting his energy, in my view.

[Evan Davis]

Well, look, we'll leave it there. When it comes to food for thought, we have had a feast. We've had a feast. My guests have been John Fingleton with his own business consultancy, Fingleton, Polly Dhaliwal from Enterprise Nation, and David Butress, co founder of Just Eat. And we didn't get to talk. Talk about the Dragons Rugby Club, David, in which you're a part owner. Thank you to them and thank you for listening. We'll be back next week when we're discussing Imposter syndrome. Do join us then. We like really varied topics. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Fingleton]

We might have thought we shouldn't be here.

[Evan Davis]

The podcast was produced by Nick Holland and Sally Abrahams. It was presented by me, Evan Davis and is a BBC long form audio production for Radio 4. We always welcome your comments, reviews and emails. We're bottomlinebc.co.uk. so Alice Loxton, I'm here for the History.

[Polly Dhaliwal]

Well, Ben Henderson, I like the formality and that's perfect because we have a lot of history to share. Why did tea become such a British obsession? How did English turn into the language we speak today? And yes, why do women's clothes still not have pockets?

[Evan Davis]

Well, in our new podcast here for the History, we're investigating how stories from the past shape everyday life today.

[Polly Dhaliwal]

Basically, the things we've all noticed but never stopped to question.

[Evan Davis]

Listen on BBC Sounds or watch on YouTube.

[David Buttress]

Just search for here for the history

[John Fingleton]

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