Minister introduces action plan to cut red tape

The Business Secretary Vince Cable has put an action plan in place to cut unnecessary red tape which he believes is stifling business growth.

He will chair a new Reducing Regulation Committee to enforce a stricter approach to regulations and ensure that the cost to business of new laws is properly addressed. New regulations will be “stress-tested” to make sure that only those of suitably high quality can proceed.

There will also be an immediate review of all new regulations inherited from the previous Government which are now coming up to implementation. There are 200 new regulations which, if fully implemented, would cost over £5bn before next April and £19.1bn annually thereafter. This will be the first priority of the new committee.

The Action Plan also involves creating a new “challenge group” which will be asked to come up with innovative approaches to achieving social and environmental targets in a non-regulatory way.

The Government says it will also adopt a “one in, one-out” approach to ensure that new regulatory burdens on businesses are matched by reductions to existing regulations. The cut in regulatory cost in the existing regulation must be greater than the cost of the new regulation.

Mr Cable said: “The deluge of new regulations has been choking off enterprise for too long. We must move away from the view that the only way to solve problems is to regulate.”

We shall keep clients informed of developments.

 

July 2010

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