Very interesting. As a lawyer, I’d add the observation that claims of growth from deregulation require precision about exactly what deregulation you are envisaging.
Anyone can grumble - as @iealondon and @ShankerASingham do in this report - about labour, environmental, data protection and agri-food rules. But the only thing that counts is specific proposals to reform them. Anything else is patter designed to conceal prestidigitation.
That’s because deregulation is hard. And it’s hard because many of the rules complained about have wide public support.
And if you think the EU is what has stopped deregulation, take a look at our planning system or income tax rules: complexity we’ve managed all on our own.
The truth is that on most analyses the U.K. is already lightly regulated by OECD standards (and that includes many non-EU countries). That in itself should engender scepticism about claims that there is much scope for economically significant deregulation. /ends
