Rachel Reeves can’t ‘regulate for growth’

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) are under pressure to reduce red tape in the financial sector. “We’ve told our regulators they need to regulate for growth, not just for risk,” the Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said. But the idea that tweaking regulations will somehow unlock growth is a fallacy.

The problem is that these ungoverned and rogue regulators are manned by second-rate lawyers and special interest groups who present their ideas as mainstream. They have never facilitated growth and have created a labyrinth of rules that suffocate the UK’s financial services industry, serving their own interests rather than the nation’s. The FCA and PRA are nothing more than self-preserving, bureaucratic entities that have systematically strangled our capital markets. Despite their heavy-handed presence, there is little to show for their so-called “protection” of investors or the economy.