Speeches by Davies.

“I am sure we will be bringing it back then.”

“Yes.”

“We are working our way through that over this year. We gave an update on our work in October; we will give another update before the summer. This will already be happening with Departments across the top 16 regulators; all of them have already had a ministerial bilateral, and the work through on the growth goals and th…”

“There was a collection of questions in there. Let me try to work my way through them all. Do I think that my Department has the capability and capacity to deliver on the growth agenda? That is probably not for me to say; I would say that you should go and speak to some businesses, and there will obviously be mixed view…”

“Yes.”

“The responsibility for that balance is with MHCLG, which is responsible for building. The central, joint team between my Department and the Treasury will provide advice, guidance and challenge to that process. For me, you do not get sustainable growth by threatening or risking life and limb in that way. That is why we …”

“Let me come at this in another way and look at some of the reforms to the Competition and Markets Authority over the past year, and the complaints or concerns that a lot of businesses I spoke to had about the CMA back in 2023 or 2024. Obviously, people will complain about decisions when it goes against them. That is pa…”

“I am trying to think of the best way into that. Ultimately, yes, because there is always that sense of how you get the appropriateness of the regulation, which is absolutely critical. The key thing in a market economy is that we are not trying to take away all risk. If you speak to CityUK—as the Chair referenced—one of…”

“Yes. That is exactly the benefit of having the integrated action plan reporting to the Chancellor and having the joint unit with officials from my team and from the Treasury. We set the strategy, which we agree through various governance within Government, and each Government Department has similar levels of responsibi…”

“The genesis of it is a very good question. If I’m honest, I don’t know; I couldn’t give you the answer and I hesitate to speculate. I think this is used more broadly than just in the political arena, but what it is trying to get to—if I back up a bit, in terms of what I think is the intent of what you are asking—is thi…”

“That is a very good question. There are two ways in which we do this. I might bring Caleb in on the consumer side. On businesses, underpinning the industrial strategy are eight sectors that we think will drive growth over the next 10 years. Each of those sectors has a sector council, which is normally chaired jointly w…”

“How do we work our way through this? With individual regulators we will set a strategic steer, which is over the course of the Parliament. Then, more tangibly, we will have an at least annual—normally biannual—meeting of the Minister and the key regulator, and annual growth goals that set out specific things they need …”

“My pleasure, Chair. My name is Gareth Davies. I am the permanent secretary at the Department for Business and Trade and was appointed in January 2023.”

“Sorry, can I just quickly come in at the end? David has very helpfully flagged that I got something wrong—apologies, Chair and Committee members. You asked how we are assuring ourselves that the targets for individual Departments are right, when they come back with administrative savings. However, it will be done not b…”

“They will be audited by the individual Departments’ auditors.”

“We are working our way through the strategic steers, and the growth guidance will be issued regulator by regulator, so that I am making it specific. What we have to do is break down the top-level success—GDP—into what that means specifically for the individual regulator. Again, let me take the example of the CAA. You r…”

“This is the key point, Chair. The target is effectively top down, informed by previous exercises and where Ministers are with what they want to do on the costs of administrative burdens for administrating regulations. On the assurance process—will it all add up to the 25%? —we can assure ourselves through what we are g…”

“I will bring in David as he runs the unit.”

“No; building safety is completely outwith this, because of all the concerns, which you touched on earlier, with Grenfell.”

“No. What we are doing and working on—”