The Role of Regulation in the Industrial Strategy
techUK sets out a summary of the Industrial Strategy published on Monday 23 June. Click here for our analysis of the Digital and Technologies sector plan.
The Government’s ten-year Industrial Strategy spotlights the Government’s intention to press ahead with ‘root-and-branch reform’ of the regulatory system.
techUK welcomed the Prime Minister’s decision to cut regulatory admin costs by 25 per cent over the current Parliament. We recently published our pro-growth regulation report (May 2025) with recommendations on how the Government can deliver this target.
Building on these commitments, the Government’s Industrial Strategy and Digital and Technologies Plan promises the following regulatory interventions:
- Improve regulator performance through stronger transparency and accountability as well as clear KPIs.
- Make our regulatory system more consistent and easier to navigate, by streamlining duties for UK regulators, with a stronger focus on growth and investment to increase dynamism and enterprise, and to increase and improve scrutiny of the effectiveness of regulations.
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Influence international standards. Working with the BSI to publish a Global Digital Standards Strategy.
- Make our regulatory system focused and proportionate, by strengthening central government oversight of the regulatory reform agenda through the creation of a new unit in the Treasury which will challenge unnecessary regulation.
- Ensure that regulation supports and keeps pace with innovation via the Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) to identify and remove specific regulatory barriers for high-growth sectors.
Targeted regulatory changes to support the IS-8. In the Digital and Technologies sector plan, the Government outlines specific pledges including:
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Tasking the Regulatory Horizons Council with creating a framework for proportionate regulatory risk-taking in emerging technologies.
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Fully implementing the AI Opportunities Action Plan by requiring regulators to report publicly on efforts to foster AI innovation.
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Investing up to £12 million from April 2026 in UK Data Sharing Infrastructure Initiatives and aiming to learn from global best practices (e.g., Common European Data Spaces).
- Improve data governance, legal frameworks, interoperability, security, and trust.
- Help businesses access and utilise cross-sector data more effectively.
- Unlocking the full potential of competition to increase market dynamism and economic growth. DBT will consult on reforms, including a ‘merger jurisdiction tests’ for the CMA and introducing measures to ensure the necessity of binding market remedies is regularly reviewed.
- Adjusting which subsidies require CMA scrutiny. In the Summer 2025 Government will increase the threshold at which subsidies must be referred to the CMA for review, from £10 million to £25 million.
- Simplifying corporate reporting requirements and explore how to make it easier for foreign companies to move to the UK.
Next Steps:
We are proud that much of techUK’s positioning on pro-growth-regulation has been reflected in the Industrial Strategy and Digital and Technologies Sector Plan section on pro-innovation regulation.
The Digital Plan commits the Government to “exploring opportunities to clarify and provide greater certainty in digital regulation”. We look forward to engaging with the Treasury oversight unit to “challenge unnecessary regulation” and DBT’s consultation on giving the CMA “merger jurisdiction tests” and to “consider requiring regular reviews of behavioural market remedies.”
Samiah Anderson
Samiah Anderson is the Head of Digital Regulation at techUK.
