Morning Star Editorial: Unrestricted corporate profiteering, not over-regulation, is ruining this country
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves takes part in a townhall session at the Calthorpe Community Gardens in London, December 18, 2025…
The State of Regulatory Enforcement in the UK report by Good Jobs First is essential reading because it shatters the self-serving myth that Britain is held back by over-regulation.
Rather, recent governments have combined significant relaxation of the rules with systematic underfunding of supervising agencies: the Health & Safety Executive has lost 45 per cent of its budget since 2010, the Environment Agency 50 per cent.
The result is corporate impunity. Companies that break the rules — whether on safety, workers’ rights, pollution or anything else — are unlikely to be caught.
When they are — and the privatised water sector is one of the few where fines have risen in 2024-25 — the nature of corporate investment incentivises continued rule-breaking. This year we’ve seen international creditors threaten to collapse Thames Water if their money is used to pay fines it received for breaking the law.
Good Jobs First has exposed how prevalent non-enforcement of the rules is across the entire economy.
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Unrestricted corporate profiteering is making Britain an ever dirtier, more dangerous and more expensive place to live.
Significant expansion of public ownership and investment in regulatory agencies to give them the means to punish bad actors is the only solution: it requires a radical change of direction from the next PM.
Original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unrestricted-corporate-profiteering-not-over-regulation-ruining-country
Corporate abuses run rampant amid health and safety law’s collapse
A general view of the Houses of Parliament in LondonReport shows enforcement hits new lows under Labour
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The data showed a steep drop in regulatory penalties for abusive employers in workplace safety, consumer protection, as well as financial and environmental offences.
This steep decline follows a government request earlier this year, asking regulators to ease actions against businesses in the hopes of stimulating economic growth.
PM Sir Keir Starmer’s government sent out letters to 17 regulators telling them to relax rules for companies across several key sectors.
In response, environmental agency enforcement continued its decades-long decline in 2025, while the Financial Conduct Authority saw a drop of nearly £600 million in penalties compared with 2024.
The report also showed that successful outcomes at employment tribunals went down this year, while the number of cases waiting to be heard have increased dramatically, with many being scheduled for 2027 or 2028.
Levels of enforcement from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) also dropped, the think tank found.
Reacting to the report, Green MP Sian Berry told the Star: “This report lays bare a catastrophic weakening of the rules that protect people and the planet.
“When environmental enforcement collapses, polluters get a green light to poison our rivers, trash our air and destroy habitats with impunity.
“The decades-long decline in Environment Agency enforcement, alongside falling financial penalties, is not an accident; it is the result of political choices.
“This is a clear failure of the Labour government to stand up to corporate power.
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