At a Birmingham-based summit on regional investment, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced her plans to abolish ‘needless form filling’ in order to accelerate economy growth. She described the plan’s focus on ‘simpler corporate rules’ – rules which will ease the burden on small businesses to register and submit data to Companies House. Tim Flagg, CEO of UKAI, expressed his support for the agenda, as he believes deregulation of AI will streamline and enhance its growth and development potential, without needless bureaucracy hampering the progress of innovators.
Accelerating Responsible AI Growth
Business Secretary Peter Kyle described Labour’s business policy as ‘pro-worker and pro-business’, emphasising the likely sizeable impact of red-tape-cutting on AI. To reduce the administrative cost of regulation, and to aid the commercial development of AI, the government intends to remove large swathes of regulation from AI technology.
Kyle insists that these measures will be both ‘targeted’ and ‘safe’, comparing Labour’s deregulation strategy against the Conservative government’s stagnation. They did not ‘do enough on regulation’ despite having promised to, he argues.
UKAI Insight
UKAI has welcomed this announcement, keen to streamline regulation and establish new AI Growth Labs to position the UK at the forefront of responsible innovation, global competitiveness, and productivity.
UKAI CEO Tim Flagg described Reeves’ announcement as ‘exactly the kind of action needed’ in Britain’s current technological climate. He celebrated its balance of bureaucracy reduction and experimentation-space creation, with its maintenance of guardrails for AI development. To Flagg, this is a parliamentary signal highlighting how ‘responsible innovation and economic growth go hand in hand’.
‘Together, we can build a thriving AI economy that reflects the UK’s values of innovation, integrity, and inclusion’ ~ Tim Flagg, CEO, UKAI.
Creating Space for Safe Innovation
Since 2024, UKAI has advocated for the introduction of sandbox environments – safe testing spaces that allow developers and regulators to explore emerging technologies without compromising ethical or legal standards.
Labour’s proposed AI Growth Labs reflect this vision and have the potential to accelerate innovation that directly benefits society: from improving healthcare delivery and infrastructure efficiency to enhancing public services and private sector competitiveness. Flagg highlighted the importance of ‘transparency, accountability, and fairness from the start’.
‘Responsible innovation and economic growth go hand in hand’ ~ Tim Flagg, CEO, UKAI.
Empowering Regulators to Enable Growth
The Government’s recognition of regulators as active enablers of innovation rather than passive gatekeepers were also strongly welcomed by UKAI’s Tim Flagg. By equipping regulatory bodies with the resources and flexibility to work collaboratively with businesses and developers, he expressed, the UK can foster a more agile and responsive ecosystem for responsible innovation.
‘Empowering regulators to be proactive partners in innovation, not just gatekeepers, will help create a more agile and responsive regulatory environment’. He expressed the need to match economic opportunity with public confidence, explaining UKAI’s readiness to practically position ‘responsible innovation’ at the forefront of business and policy.
AI: an Engine of Sustainable Growth
As the Government places growth at the heart of its economic strategy, UKAI feels, the integration of responsible AI into that mission presents an opportunity to transform productivity, attract investment, and deliver tangible, equitable, public benefit.
‘Empowering regulators to be proactive partners in innovation, not just gatekeepers, will help create a more agile and responsive regulatory environment’ ~ Tim Flagg, CEO, UKAI.
Flagg expressed his keenness to collaborate with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and industry partners to contribute to the development of the AI Growth Labs and turn these ambitions into action.
His concluding statement was one of ambition and innovation: ‘Together, we can build a thriving AI economy that reflects the UK’s values of innovation, integrity, and inclusion. This is a further step towards making the UK a leader in responsible AI’.
