There was broad recognition at conference that this cannot mean less regulation. The challenge is better, faster and more purposeful regulation, capable of keeping pace with technological and economic change while maintaining public confidence.

The planned Regulating for Growth Bill, which we heard was still going ahead under Burnham, will therefore be an important test.

There is a clear recognition among Labour politicians that the regulatory system needs to recalibrate its approach to risk. The key uncertainty is how far they are willing to translate that ambition into greater political direction and responsibility for those risks.

Several big questions that are being discussed this week include:

▪️ Pace: can regulatory decision-making move quickly enough to support investment and innovation?
▪️ Culture: has a focus on process and risk avoidance sometimes come at the expense of outcomes?
▪️ Direction: how can politicians set clearer expectations for regulators while protecting the independence?
▪️ Capability: do regulators have the right skills, capacity and expertise to understand increasingly complex markets?
▪️ Consumers: can the government make the argument that recalibrating risks and reducing unnecessary compliance costs ultimately delivers better and cheaper outcomes for consumers?

Unlocking innovation was a major theme and the Bill’s proposed sandboxing powers are seen as particularly significant, creating greater scope to test innovative approaches rather than requiring new ideas to fit immediately within existing regulatory structures.

But there is a wider political argument developing too. The Prime Minister’s concept of “public ownership” could increasingly be expressed through how essential privately owned infrastructure and services are regulated, through concepts such as a ‘public interest duty’. That raises questions about the long-term public interest, accountability and whether regulatory frameworks adequately reflect the public goods these businesses deliver.

As previous governments have found, regulatory reform is hard. Regulators operate within statutory frameworks containing multiple duties and difficult trade-offs.

But if growth is the destination, regulation is increasingly being recognised not simply as a constraint to manage, but as one of the critical tools for achieving those economic aims.