(Bloomberg) -- The UK is opening an office to speed up approvals of novel technologies, including drones and pest-resistant crops, as part of plan to improve the business climate ahead of a major government investment summit.
The new body, called the Regulatory Innovation Office, is designed to reduce the time entrepreneurs wait to get inventions to market and streamline the regulatory hurdles they must deal with, the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The innovation that’s coming through doesn’t stick to one sector,” Peter Kyle, secretary of state for science, said in an interview before the announcement. “I became obsessed with the fact we were missing out, society was missing out on these innovations.”
The Labour government will court tech companies and investors at a conference on Oct. 14 as it faces a broad and sharp decline in sentiment among consumers and businesses, which economists widely attribute to concerns over plans to fill a £22 billion ($29 billion) fiscal hole. Recently, the Treasury acknowledged that some tax-raising proposals that drew investor criticism are now under review.
Kyle first proposed the new office during this year’s election campaign. Initially, it will focus on reviewing tech from four fields: space, artificial intelligence used in health care, autonomous vehicles and drones, and synthetic biology to create new products like cleaner fuels or cultivated meat.
The government is working with the Food Standards Agency to streamline approvals for food alternatives developed from lab-grown cells, Kyle said, adding that the body plans to work with other regulators in the future.
The new office takes inspiration from the Covid-19 task force the prior government set up during the pandemic, according to Kyle.
“Concerted effort was taken to get through the regulatory process swiftly for the chronic challenges of the time,” Kyle said. “But we shouldn’t leave those kind of experiences in that pandemic period.”
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
