Red tape is ‘killing’ Britain, warns ex-Google chief

Eric Schmidt tells Prime Minister he must fix regulation ‘delay’ to hit net zero goals

The former chief executive of Google has said that excessive bureaucracy and red tape is “killing” Britain.
Eric Schmidt told the Prime Minister that he would benefit from having a “minister of anti-regulation” as he aims to kick-start growth in the British economy while meeting green ambitions.
Speaking at Sir Keir Starmer’s flagship investment summit, Mr Schmidt said: “The cost of capital and the delay is killing you, and furthermore you’re not going to achieve your 2030 energy goal, which is laudable, without fixing this.
“You have a tactical leadership problem to achieve this and I think you can pull it off, but you have to figure out a way to get control.”
The UK has committed to a 68pc reduction in emissions by 2030 as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has also set a goal of decarbonising the electricity grid by the end of the decade under net zero plans.
Mr Schmidt said these goals would not be reached unless Sir Keir fixed the “delay” caused by regulation in the UK.
It came as ministers also admitted that slow grid connections – if not tackled – risked derailing their mission to make the power system net zero by 2030, as they began consulting on a 10-year industrial strategy for the UK.
Speaking in a Q&A with the Prime Minister at the International Investment Summit in London, Mr Schmidt said: “Democracies, especially something as old as this one, have so many ways in which people can say no.
“I’d much rather – and I think the business community would much rather – have a single person who can say yes or no … and then they can move on.”
The Prime Minister replied: “I think this is a really big challenge, it has to be a cross-Government priority, not just within the Treasury team.”
Sir Keir said the Government was “setting up some of the structures that will do this” and repeated that the Government’s central question would always be: “Does this promote growth or does it not promote growth?”
In his keynote speech, the Prime Minister vowed to “rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment” and “do everything in my power to galvanize growth”.
Asked if he agreed with Mr Schmidt’s comments, Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, admitted that regulatory delays were “one of our biggest problems”.
He said: “I think Eric is absolutely fair when he says that. The average length of time to commission an offshore wind farm – which is actually one of our relative success stories in the last few years – being over a decade. I mean, there’s a reasonable point to be made here.
“The point of our present system is it doesn’t give anyone what I think they want.”
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, also described the ongoing crisis in Thames Water as a “mess” as she blamed regulators for their part in years of underinvestment in the sector. 
“Water regulation has failed in the past, and that’s why we’re in the mess we are in today,” she said. “That investment was not prioritised by the regulators, and as a result, we haven’t built any new reservoirs in something like 30 years in Britain, and the infrastructure is crumbling.”
While she said bills were likely to rise, she signalled that the Government would do more to ensure that money raised would be pumped back into maintaining the infrastructure.
“It’s clear that more investment is needed, but if prices are going to go up […] it’s really important that all of that money goes into investment, rather than share buybacks, dividends and bonus payments.”
The comments came after the boss of Octopus Energy urged the Government to remove regulations to allow greater investment in heat pumps.
Greg Jackson said the need for planning permission to install the equipment was “kind of crazy” given the desire from ministers for homeowners to switch to cleaner energy.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The Government is very keen to support the move to heat pumps for heating our homes and yet there is a whole pile of rules that heat pumps suffer from.
“A lot of homes need planning permission, which is kind of crazy. Four out of 10 people who come to us for a heat pump are dropping out because of those regulatory barriers.
“What we need is regulation which lines up with the Government’s objectives and that will enable us to deploy so much more investment in the UK economy.”
He added there was an “enormous amount of capital globally available to be invested in those countries which create the right environment” for businesses.
Mr Jackson spoke days after claims emerged that former Bank of England governor Mark Carney lobbied ministers to relax rules on heat pump subsidies to benefit the asset management business he chairs.
Mr Carney, a Labour adviser who has helped Rachel Reeves with the creation of the National Wealth Fund, raised the idea of changing the cash for heat pump installations scheme with the Chancellor, according to the founder of HomeServe, Richard Harpin.
Mr Harpin’s plumbing and heating company was bought by Brookfield Asset Management, which is chaired by Mr Carney, for £4.1bn in 2022. 
The Chancellor is being pushed by HomeServe to change the rules so that companies that rent heat pumps to homeowners can claim grants for their installations, which are worth £7,500 each. Currently, grant money is only available to homeowners.