"It is perfectly sensible to make pragmatic changes such as the ones that we're announcing today," he said at an event hosted by the Financial Times.

"But we're doing so very, very carefully to make sure that the UK is a competitive, exciting place to be and to invest, but also that we don't lose the guard rails that we put in place after 2008."

(Reporting by William James, writing by David Milliken, Editing by Kylie MacLellan)