Rishi Sunak was handed a list of 100 regulatory changes to make a success of Brexit by Tory MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester on Monday.
Sir Iain used a speech at a fringe event hosted by the Centre for Brexit Policy named “Making the intellectual, evidence-based case for Brexit and its benefits” to explain how he thought the UK could be better capitalising on its freedom from the EU.
Making the case for a return to English Common Law, he said: “This is the single biggest reason why I voted to support Brexit. I recommended 100 regulatory changes that would ease market conditions across financial services, through agriculture, into the manufacturing industry… across the board.”
He added: “But we did say the principles should now start from how you regulate so a return to English Common Law and its principles to make future regulations where you only regulate for what you know to be known harms, not potential harms.
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“That was something that to me was demonstrable at the time. And that is why Common Law works so well.”
In the same discussion, Sir Iain was quick to point out that Remainer “doomsters” were wrong in their economic forecasts about Brexit and that new figures have “silenced” critics of the UK’s exit from the bloc.
He said: “I am positive, we’ve had a lot of doomsters say I knew this would happen the UK is lagging behind in economics because of Brexit.
“Then what did we discover a few days ago? The ONS comes forward and says by the way I think we got our figures rather wrong actually the UK grew by two points more which puts it at the top rank of European nations.
“That I noticed has silenced a number of people including the ex-governor of the Bank of England.”
Former Brexit minister Lord Frost concurred with his Tory colleague, explaining that the UK’s economic growth puts it at the top of the European G7, not at the bottom.
He said: “I think it’s important to beat the mindset that somehow Brexit is failing which somehow seems to have got extremely widespread in the political and media class.
“Economically this is a success, our economy is now 2.2 percent bigger than 2019, therefore, that’s the best of the European G7, not the worst as we were being told.”
It comes as ministers will seek to cut red tape for businesses with an in-depth review of the authorities which supervise their work.
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch announced the Government would undertake a review of how regulators work during the Conservative Party conference.
A 12-week call for evidence into the role of regulators will seek to create economic growth by freeing businesses of unneeded regulations, as well as provide new benefits for consumers and the environment.
Ms Badenoch said: “I want us to use our Brexit freedoms to scrap unnecessary regulations that hold back firms and hamper growth.
“It’s clear that the regulators that enforce the rules can also sometimes be a blocker to businesses, so our review will seek to root out the bad practices with the aim of making companies’ lives easier and reducing costs for consumers.”
