Britain’s leading small business group has issued a clarion call to economic watchdogs to heed Sir Keir Starmer’s edict to tear up regulatory barriers to growth with a fresh list of demands for reform.
Sky News has obtained a letter from the FSB to more than half a dozen regulators, including Ofgem and the Financial Conduct Authority, in which it calls on ministers and public bodies “to put their shoulders to the wheel on growth alongside business and industry”.
“We wholeheartedly agree [with the prime minister] that regulators have a duty to take a long hard look at current activities in their sphere for their impact on economic growth – to be ‘pro-growth’ and ‘pro-investment’ in their partnerships,” the letter said.
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The FSB’s intervention has emerged in the same week that roughly a dozen watchdogs are expected to submit idea for removing growth barriers in their responses to Downing Street.
In its letter, the FSB said the FCA should “properly investigate the blanket use of Personal Guarantees for limited companies”, which it argues deters company directors from taking on debt to invest in their businesses.
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It called on Ofgem to give SMEs a 14-day cooling-off period on their energy contracts, and urged Ofwat to commit to treating small businesses which have been subjected to swingeing price increases like consumers rather than large corporates.
The FSB also wants Ofcom, the communications regulator, to “broaden its remit to include regulation of cloud services in the same way as broadband providers, as an increasingly vital part of national infrastructure”.
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Meanwhile, the Competition and Markets Authority is being urged by the FSB to outline in its response to Sir Keir how its approach to the new digital markets competition regime would protect SMEs.
It added that the Information Commissioner’s Office should introduce a small business exemption or discount on its regulatory fees to level the playing field with larger peers.
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The FSB also wrote to the Financial Reporting Council, the audit regulator, which was not among the recipients of Sir Keir’s letter, to ask it “to ensure major companies adopt the government’s new anti-late payments stance by supporting much greater transparency and accountability through payment performance and practice of large firms being added to audit committee responsibilities”.
Sir Keir’s Christmas Eve letter to watchdogs – revealed by Sky News days later – is understood to have been the brainchild of Varun Chandra, the PM’s special adviser on business and investment.
It is understood to have referred to a need for every government department and regulator to support growth, and called on each recipient to submit five ideas for delivering that mandate by 16 January.
