Cutting the red tape!

Category: Business
Date: 6/28/2006 8:24:47 AM

Cabinet Office Minister, Jim Murphy, has introduced a Bill to Parliament that should provide a swift and effective mechanism for delivering the Government's radical regulatory reform programme to cut red tape.

The Legislative & Regulatory Reform Bill aims to make it quicker and easier to tackle unnecessary or over-complicated regulation and help bring about a risk-based approach to regulation.

The Bill would help deliver a number of the wide-scale reforms announced in the Better Regulations Action Plan in May 2005 - a programme that has been widely endorsed by business, public sector and voluntary sector legislation.

It would do this primarily by creating a wider law reform power than that in the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. This will allow the government to deliver reform of outdated or over-complicated legislation more quickly, and enable the mergers of those regulators not currently covered by separate legislation.

The Bill includes:

- A new power to reform outdated, unnecessary or over-complicated legislation.
- Measures to encourage a risk-based approach to regulation and inspection.
- Measures to make legislation coming from the EU easier for UK organisations to deal with.

David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, said:

"Employers warmly welcome this Bill which could be a major step forward in the drive to reduce the burden of regulation on business. Complicated and costly regulations are one of the main barriers to business growth, especially for smaller companies. Employers will now be looking for the Government to fully implement its programme and achieve a NET reduction in the costs of complying with regulations."