UK’s Reeves floats ‘radical shake-up’ of bureaucracy to cut business costs

British chancellor to meet regulators on Monday to announce the ‘action plan’ for cutting red tape.

The United Kingdom’s Labour Party government is set to announce a “radical shake-up” of bureaucracy aimed at cutting administrative costs for businesses by a quarter.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is set to meet with regulators on Monday to announce the “action plan” for cutting red tape, His Majesty’s Treasury said in a statement on Sunday.

Under the plan, the government will cut the number of regulators, streamline the implementation of environmental regulations for major projects, and slash “costly red tape”, including hundreds of pages of guidance on protecting bat habitats.

The shake-up comes alongside 60 measures that regulators have agreed upon to improve the business environment, including the fast-tracking of new medicines to market and the simplifying of mortgage lending rules, the Treasury said.

“By cutting red tape and creating a more effective system, we will boost investment, create jobs and put more money into working people’s pockets,” Reeves said.

Reeves’s announcement comes days after Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to undertake reforms to overhaul the UK’s “overcautious, flabby state”.

Last week, Starmer said he would scrap the body that oversees England’s state-funded health service and abolish the payments regulator by folding its remit into the country’s main financial watchdog.

Starmer’s Labour government was elected in July on the back of a pledge to kick-start economic growth and boost living standards after years of stagnation and decline.

After sweeping to power in a landslide, Starmer has rapidly shed support as his government struggles to find savings while also boosting growth.

In an Ipsos poll released last month, 48 percent of Britons said that the government is doing a bad job of running the country, while 49 percent said its economic plans would have a negative impact.

The UK’s economy shrank by 0.1 percent, after growing 0.4 percent in December and 0.1 percent in November.