HC Deb 07 September 2004 vol 424 c1197W
Mr. Bellingham

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate his Department has made of the cost to the financial services industry of complying with Financial Services Authority regulations since 1997. [186353]

Ruth Kelly

In 2003 the Financial Services Authority (FSA) commissioned Europe Economics to undertake a major survey of the financial costs of regulation and published the results. This survey found that the median increase in annual incremental compliance costs from 1998 to 2002 resulting from changes to FSA regulation was less than 1 per cent. of operating costs.