Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has welcomed fresh Government action to strip back outdated reporting requirements, saying the reforms will cut costs for businesses, including SMEs, and free firms to focus more time on growth and job creation.
The Government is pushing ahead with further changes to corporate reporting as part of its wider effort to reduce the administrative burden on companies. Ministers say the package of regulatory reforms is designed to simplify requirements that have become unnecessarily complex or duplicative.
Writing on X, Reynolds said:
“We’re stripping back outdated bureaucracy and building a common-sense system fit for a 21st-century economy.”
He added:
“This will cut the cost of doing business, giving breathing room to bosses across the country, and freeing them up to focus on what they do best, creating jobs and growth.”
The Department for Business, Innovation and Science said the latest plans would particularly benefit businesses and SMEs by reducing time-consuming paperwork and reporting requirements.
Among reforms already announced, the Government intends to exempt medium-sized private companies from having to produce a strategic report, extend exemptions to some wholly owned subsidiaries, and remove the general requirement for companies to produce a directors’ report. Ministers previously estimated that this part of the corporate reporting reform programme alone could save businesses around £230 million a year in administrative costs.
The changes follow earlier reforms that increased company-size thresholds and removed duplicative reporting requirements, with the Government arguing that smaller firms in particular should not face the same administrative burden as much larger businesses.
Further Companies House reforms are also being phased in. From April 2028, companies will move to software-based accounts filing, while small companies and micro-entities will be able to opt out of publicly displaying their profit-and-loss accounts even though the information will still be available to Companies House, HMRC and law-enforcement bodies.
The latest announcement comes as Labour seeks to demonstrate that its pro-business agenda is not only about investment and industrial strategy but also about reducing unnecessary costs faced by firms.
Reynolds has repeatedly argued that regulation should protect workers, consumers and the integrity of markets while remaining proportionate and practical for businesses.
The department said the reforms would create “a better environment for firms across the country to grow and invest”.
For SMEs in particular, reducing paperwork can have a disproportionate benefit, as smaller businesses often have fewer staff and less capacity to deal with complex administrative requirements.
Reynolds’ message is that Labour wants to replace outdated bureaucracy with a more modern regulatory system — lowering the cost of doing business while giving entrepreneurs and employers more time to invest, expand and create jobs.
