Time is Money: How Regulators Can Support Growth (Industry and Regulators Committee Report)

Lord Camoys Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Camoys (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and her committee on this excellent and important report. I joined the committee after the report was written, so I cannot claim any credit for it, but I have spent the past few years on the receiving end of the system it describes. I declare my interests as set out in the register, particularly as a founder of Marlow Film Studios.

I am speaking towards the end of this debate, so most of the substantive points have already been made, but I want to mention three things from my own experience of engaging with regulators on the planning system over the past few years. The first is the lack of accountability for delays. My experience has been that deadlines are set, missed and then missed again. As far as I could tell, nothing happened as a result. If a business misses a regulator’s deadline, there are consequences but, when a regulator misses its own, there seem to be none. The Government’s response promises clearer approval targets and ministerial performance reviews, which I welcome, but I am not convinced that publishing targets alone will change very much. What happens when those targets are repeatedly missed? I would be grateful if the Minister could explain how that accountability will work in practice.

The second is the problem of regulators overlapping with one another. I have seen how National Highways, the Environment Agency and Natural England, among others, can each operate to its own timetable and ask its own questions without anyone having the authority to bring them together and get things moving. The Government have seven lead environmental regulator pilots under way, but these remain within Defra’s remit, and the lead regulator can co-ordinate but cannot decide. Will the Government extend this approach beyond Defra, and will the lead regulator actually have the authority to resolve disagreements? A single front door is a fine idea, provided there is somebody behind it with the authority to say yes.

My third point concerns risk. Robert Colvile told the committee that nobody is promoted for approving a company that succeeds and that, if something goes wrong, they may find themselves hauled before a Select Committee. I do not believe that the officials with whom I dealt were deliberately obstructive; they were simply working within the system as it currently operates. Regulators must of course protect the public and the environment, among other things but, as others have said, surely it is for Ministers, rather than individual officials, to decide how those responsibilities should be balanced against economic growth. The Government propose a stronger growth duty and statutory ministerial steers, but will Ministers make clear what level of risk they are prepared to accept and stand behind officials when a decision proves controversial?

The committee has done a valuable job in identifying these problems. The Government have accepted much of what it recommends. What matters now is whether that translates into real change; I hope that the Minister can assure us that it will.