Thread by @pmdfoster

🚨🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧💉🏥🔬🧬🧪🧫🇪🇺🚛🚨🚨My latest #Brexit Briefing is out. And it looks at “regulatory science” and the “real opportunity of Brexit”…which might not quite be what is commonly understood. via @FT Stay with me/1
ft.com/content/19af24…

@FT It has been one of the long-running themes of #Brexit that the UK, freed of the stultifying regulatory dead hand of Brussels, can prosper by being 'nimbler' and more 'innovative' and in, simple terms, slashing 'red tape'...which makes for a strong political narrative. BUT.../2

@FT It comes up against some uncomfortable facts, which is that the UK (4pc, say of total global spending on medical devices) really isn't big enough to make the regulatory weather...global industries like pharma, finance etc have to follow EU, US standards to monetize products/3

@FT And we know from previous 'red tape' killing efforts -- recall that Balance of Competences Review of 2014 that was meant to identify where we could get rid of Brussels red tape failed to find much to cut -- that this is easier said than done /4

gov.uk/guidance/revie…

@FT And if we needed evidence for this, then just recall the fact that its five years since #Brexit and despite endless statements about "seizing the opportunities of Brexit" from the govt...they remain stubbornly obscure, or something that is pegged to the future (AI etc) /5

@FT So. Should we all give up and go home?

No. #brexit is done, it won't be undone and so we do need to see how (gravity/size constraints noted above notwithstanding) we can achieve a regulatory dividend...

And perhaps we can. But it won't be from tinkering with legislation.../6

@FT It will come, per experts like Prof Chris Hodges at Oxford University, from advances in what is known as 'regulatory science'....which I must confess is a field I've only just really come across, but could be the engine of genuinely better outcomes post-#Brexit /7

@FT SO this is not about 'slashing red tape' -- which was still the basis of thinking behind Iain Duncan Smith's TIGRR report -- but rethinking the way regulations and regulators operate. To see them as enabling not obstructing forces/8

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

This requires quite a radical shift in thinking...but the #COVID19 pandemic has been a grand stage for regulators, attuning the public (at the sharp end of the virus) to dividends of good regulation - faster vaccines, tests and ventilators that work and don't harm etc /9

Hodges cites the example of the airline industry as an illustration of where collective goal-sharing -- keeping planes in the air, passengers safe -- drives safety and innovation, not sticks/sanctions /10

He says some govt agencies, for example those working in environment, already apply some of these principles -- cracking down hard on the crooks, helping those who are failing, and leaving those who are doing good job pretty much unencumbered /11

The approach still contains sanctions and oversight, but is much targetted and enabling than traditional 'same rules for everyone' approaches....of the kind that, for EG, underpin the EU's new Medical Devices Regulation /12

MDR is currently causing a massive headache for the industry...it is driving products from the market (to patients detriment) because of the burden of bureaucracy and lack of capacity in regulators and notified bodies that certify products...long term the UK can look different/13

That's the vision of groups like Birmingham Health Partners, a cluster of academics/hospitals etc that is looking at how the regulatory field can be re-engineered.../14

birminghamhealthpartners.co.uk/Advancing%20Re…

As @drmelcalvert the BHP regulatory science director tells me, "a national strategy for UK regulatory science will allow us to be both globally competitive and internationally collaborative"..../15

@drmelcalvert Whether all of this thinking, which is quite abstract, can make the difference in the concrete world will be the work of the next decade....and it will require government, business and regulators to join the dots so that the UK gets more bang for its science bucks /16

None of this changes the gravitational reality of #Brexit but it does open the door for broader thinking outside the remainer/brexiter blinkers that constrain so much of the wider discussion on 'what next after Brexit'. ENDS