Government and regulators cannot rely on a flawed assumption that market design and distributional consequences can be separated. For future regulatory proposals with significant distributional consequences:

• Regulators should publish an analysis of the distributional consequences for consumers and businesses of their proposals, and of the impact of possible mitigations for significant adverse effects
• Regulators’ boards should be given the power, by 2021, to seek explicit guidance from ministers on strategic policy direction and distributional choices, against a menu of feasible options provided by the regulator and within a fixed three-month period