Britain’s regulatory state is about the only thing that’s growing under this Labour government, says Andrew Griffith

As business now know, words are cheap – it’s actions that count. Rachel Reeves has spoken at length about her drive to deregulate the city, from her Mansion House speech in the summer to a recent deregulatory launch. The numbers, however, tell a very different story.

Figures from the TaxPayers’ Alliance reveal the UK’s regulatory state is just about the only thing growing in Labour’s Britain. Across key financial regulators, headcount has risen by 55 per cent in the past decade. The little-known Payment System Regulator, to take one example, has managed to increase its headcount by nearly 200 per cent.

The result is an astonishing 4,466 people more people working across the Financial Conduct Authority, Competition and Markets Authority, Payment Systems Regulator and Prudential Regulations Authority than there were almost a decade ago.

While GDP per capita growth........

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