Call for Evidence

The Committee invites interested individuals and organisations to submit evidence by Friday 1 December 2023. The Committee will be holding public evidence sessions between October and Christmas, and aims to report to the House in the new year.

Background

According to the Department for Business and Trade, there are 90 regulators across the UK, not including local authorities. They cover a wide range of areas and have a range of different powers and responsibilities; in some cases they have been given a specific job to do by Parliament. Many regulators, though not all of them, are public bodies, funded by the taxpayer.

To date, the Industry and Regulators Committee has conducted scrutiny of a number of regulators, including Ofwat, Ofgem, and the Office for Students. The Committee is now launching a cross-cutting and thematic inquiry into UK regulators, drawing in part on the findings of its previous inquiries. The inquiry will focus in particular on the relationship between regulators and the Government, and on how regulators are held accountable, including by Parliament.

Contributing evidence

The Committee encourages anyone with expertise in or experience of the matters under consideration in its inquiry to submit written evidence.

Diversity comes in many forms, and hearing a range of different perspectives means that committees are better informed and can more effectively scrutinise public policy and legislation. Committees can undertake their role most effectively when they hear from a wide range of individuals, sectors or groups in society affected by a particular policy or piece of legislation. We encourage anyone with experience or expertise of an issue under investigation by a Select Committee to share their views with the Committee, with the full knowledge that their views have value and are welcome.

If you wish to contribute your experience and expertise to this inquiry, please respond to the questions below. There is no obligation to answer every question.

Questions

The Committee is interested in answers to the following questions:

1) Are UK regulators being given a clear job to do?

2) Is the right balance being struck between the responsibilities of regulators and those of the Government, particularly where there are political or distributional trade-offs that need to be resolved?

3) Are regulators appropriately independent of government? Is the right balance being struck between strategic and political input from government and preserving the operational independence of the regulators?

4) Does the Government provide too much or too little guidance to regulators in making decisions, particularly in deciding between different objectives and priorities?

5) Are the roles and remits of different regulators sufficiently discrete, or is there overlap and duplication?

6) How effectively do regulators co-operate with one another, and how could this be improved?

7) Do the UK’s regulators have the necessary skills, capabilities and expertise internally to perform the roles they have been given? If they do not, how could this be improved?

8) Who should hold the regulators accountable for their performance against their objectives? What is the appropriate role of Parliament in performing this scrutiny role?

9) How should the Government and the regulators themselves facilitate appropriate scrutiny and accountability of regulators? Are regulators sufficiently transparent about their own performance?

10) What mechanisms and metrics could be used to hold regulators accountable on a regular and ongoing basis and to judge whether a regulator is performing well?

11) Do any of the UK’s international comparators address the above questions particularly well? What lessons, if any, can the UK learn from other jurisdictions on these matters?

For this inquiry, the Committee is focussing specifically on regulators which a) have a statutory role established by Parliament and b) are organised as public bodies.

Prospective witnesses are asked to bear these parameters in mind when submitting evidence.

ANNEX

Guidance on giving evidence to a House of Commons select committee:https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/committees/how-do-i-submit-evidence/guidance-for-house-of-commons-select-committee-witnesses/