The Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC)

Stephen Gibson is Chair of the Government’s Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) – the independent Better Regulation watchdog in the UK. The RPC provides external scrutiny on the  quality of evidence and analysis supporting regulatory changes affecting business and civil society.

The RPC consists of a Board of eight independent experts supported by a secretariat. Stephen Gibson has been a specialist economist member of the RPC Board since May 2018 and was appointed Interim Chair  in November 2019 and Chair of the RPC in May 2020.

Stephen has appeared before the BEIS Select Committee, the International Trade Select Committee and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to discuss the work of the RPC. As Chair of the RPC, Stephen has spoken at the Institute of Regulation Annual Conference, the UEA Centre for Competition and Regulation conference, the Regulatory Policy Institute Westminster conference, the International Association on Regulation & Governance inaugural conference at the University of Pennsylvania (where he gave the keynote lecture), the Forum of Indian Regulators’ annual conference (where he gave the keynote lecture) and the Australian-New Zealand Regulatory Review conference (where he gave the keynote address), as well as many seminars, workshops and roundtables.

Stephen also represents the RPC at RegWatch Europe – the group of 8 European scrutiny bodies who work together to ensure that the regulatory scrutiny of government analysis in Germany, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Finland, Denmark and the UK is of the highest standard.

Stephen has chaired the RPC’s methodology committee, leading the development of methodological approaches to Impact Assessments (IAs). He works with the Chief Economists in Government departments to improve the quality of IAs across government and to revise and update the HMT Green Book.

Stephen has led the scrutiny of dozens of IAs including:

    • The Retained EU Law Bill IA
    • IAs relating to Covid vaccinations
    • IAs relating to the UK’s leaving the EU, the EU Withdrawal Act and the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill
    • Regulations in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit
    • Free trade agreements with Japan, Australia and New Zealand,
    • Proposals relating to mobile phone, energy and road vehicle regulation,
    • Pension enrolment regulations,
    • Air space and nuclear regulation, and
    • Corporate governance proposals.

Stephen also provides support for clients seeking to challenge government regulatory proposals by critiquing the methodology, evidence and analysis in the impact assessment. This has led to the proposed policies being withdrawn, modified or significantly postponed.  In these cases he declares a conflict of interest and is not involved in any RPC work related to these topics.

Please contact SLG Economics for more information about support in challenging government impact analysis.