When Boris Johnson’s government unveiled its legislative program for next year on Tuesday, there will be some striking gaps.
Legislation to improve the UK’s audit and corporate governance, provide legal powers for the technology supervisor and set up a new football supervisor – all aimed at improving business performance or allowing fairer market conditions – has been dropped. the queen’s speech.
Whitehall officials said the government’s decisions to reject the bills reflected political priorities and practical issues, but also highlighted the influence of a key figure in Downing Street: David Canzini, deputy chief of staff to the prime minister.
Kansini was hired in February after Johnson responded to calls from conservative lawmakers to shake up what they saw as dysfunctional number 10 in the midst of the party scandal.
With a warning from the Bank of England last week that the UK was heading into recession, Kansini told colleagues in recent days that Downing Street believed “conservative governments are not legalizing their path to economic growth,” an official said.
The government has abandoned plans for a bill that would create a single agency to enforce employees’ rights and make flexible working as a default option for employees.
Kansini has scrutinized proposed government policies based on whether voters will like them – for example, audit reform is seen as boring – as Johnson prepares for next year’s general election or in 2024. Downing Street declined to comment.
David Canzini, the deputy chief of staff to the prime minister, told colleagues that Downing Street believed “conservative governments are not legitimizing their path to economic growth,” an official said.
One minister said that the disgust of some in number 10 for the new business regulation is part of the “bastard form of Thatcherism”, which does not recognize that good rules can help the functioning of markets – for example, by stopping corporate scandals.
Roger Barker, director of policy at the Institute of Directors, a business lobby group, said he believes government policy toward companies has changed over the past few months, with some parts of Whitehall resisting certain reforms or seeking to prioritize others. questions.
He added: “At IoD, we are aware of the regulatory burden. . . However, reform is urgently needed in some areas, such as the establishment of an audit oversight body on a legal basis. It’s disappointing, because these are areas that we’ve been working on for a while, and we’ve helped shape them to be business-friendly. “
In a meeting with ministerial advisers last week after poor results in the local Conservative election, Kansini called on his aides to come up with more “wedge problems” to distinguish the Tories from Labor and the Liberal Democrats.
In Whitehall, Kansini has been blamed – or blamed – for several recent policies designed to reassure right-wing Conservative lawmakers.
These include opposing a new generous goal of expanding onshore wind farms and public consultation to end the moratorium on oil and gas fracking.
The government has also rejected plans to ban buy-for-free deals for junk food from supermarkets.
Kansini was a longtime business partner of Sir Linton Crosby, the Australian political strategist who has been one of Johnson’s key allies since his time as mayor of London.
Kansini maintains a much lower profile than Crosby, saying on his Twitter page – under a photo by Darth Vader – “Who cares who or what I am?”
He has power and influence in Whitehall that extends far beyond his position. For example, Kansini holds a meeting every Friday with special advisers to all ministers, a task previously performed by Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser.
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One councilor said: “People are afraid of him, but in a good way – if he wants things to end, they end quickly.”
A former Canzini business colleague said he liked to be portrayed as “bruised”.
Kansini served as an adviser to Theresa May when she was prime minister, but clashed with her over Brexit because she felt she was pursuing too soft an exit from the EU. He later became a close ally of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tories, which helped undermine May.
Some ministers expressed hope that bills to reform audit regulation and corporate governance, empower a technology oversight body called the Digital Markets Department and set up a football oversight body would be passed before the next election.
They proposed that bills in all three areas be included in the Queen’s 2023 speech, as draft versions prepared for “preliminary legislative scrutiny” next year.
But some government officials were skeptical. The last parliamentary session before elections often involves focusing on legislation that is thought to play well with voters, with other bills repealed.
Whitehall officials said decisions about what legislation to include in the Queen’s speech on Tuesday were also influenced by the way the government is tackling the bill backlog caused by the coronavirus crisis.
Half a dozen pieces of legislation from the last parliamentary session, including the controversial online security bill to tackle illegal and harmful content on the internet, have not yet reached statute. They will now be included in the 2022-23 parliamentary session.
The process of shortening the list of bills to be included in the Queen’s speech is chaotic and “last minute”, an official said.
“They were so busy with the partygate, then with the war in Ukraine, that there was no bandwidth in number 10 to go through all the legislation that the ministers were proposing,” the official added.
Additional reports by Daniel Thomas in London
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