Select committee: Financial Services Regulation Committee

Conclusion 55

2nd Report - Growing pains: clarity and culture change required - An examination of the secondary international competitiveness and growth objective Published 13 Jun 2025 Paragraph 280

Financial Services Regulation Committee FCA and PRA’s secondary competitiveness and growth objective All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗

Conclusion (the committee's words)

The regulatory environment has inhibited those who have sufficient savings and may benefit from investing. The Committee recognises the inherent benefit to consumers who can invest and benefit from higher returns and recognises these reforms could help deepen the UK’s secondary capital markets. However, we did not receive satisfactory evidence to suggest that the creation of an equity investment culture in the UK would, by itself, increase productive investment, nor facilitate growth in the wider economy. However, an increase in savings into pension funds may increase the amount of investment available for productive assets.

From: Financial Services Regulation Committee, 2nd Report - Growing pains: clarity and culture change required - An examination of the secondary international competitiveness and growth objective, paragraph 280, 13 June 2025

Government response

The government responded to the whole report on 3 September 2025 (deadline 3 September 2025).

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The government says there is "strong alignment" between the Committee's recommendations and its July 2025 Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy, agreeing with many recommendations while declining some, including a new compliance cost study and a review of the secondary objective metrics.

On compliance costs (Recommendation 1), the government agrees burdens should be proportionate but "does not intend to commission a new study" "at this time", to avoid duplicating its baselining exercise; it will consider next steps once that work is complete.
On secondary objective metrics (Recommendation 11), the government "does not plan to undertake a further review at this time", citing the granularity of the existing metrics, but says it will continue to monitor the regulators' progress.
On regulatory overlap (Recommendation 2), the government will "consult on the detail" of consolidating the PSR within the FCA and legislate "as soon as possible", but says it would not be "practical or proportionate" to review all financial services legislation and regulator rules in detail.
On reporting to the Committee (Recommendation 15), the government says it cannot "commit to producing specific research" but will provide an update on its work to the Committee within twelve months.

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error