Business Secretary
Vince Cable today announced an action plan to bring an end to the
excessive regulation that is stifling business growth.
He detailed the first phase of the Coalition Government’s action
plan to reduce regulation following the Prime Minister’s
commitment last week to “re-open Britain for business”.
The action plan:
· Creates a new Cabinet “Star Chamber” that will lead the
Government’s drive to reduce regulation which is stifling growth,
especially of small businesses. This Reducing Regulation Committee
will be chaired by the Business Secretary and will enforce a new
approach to new laws and regulations, ensuring that their costs
are being properly addressed across the entire British economy.
· Announces an immediate review of all regulation in the
pipeline for implementation which has been inherited from the last
Government. The cost of implementing this amounts to £5bn annually
before April 2011 and £19.1bn per annum thereafter. This will be
the first action for the new Cabinet committee.
· Establishes a new “challenge group” to come up with innovative
approaches to achieving social and environmental goals in a
non-regulatory way. This team would work with experts including
Richard Thaler, the US behavioural economist.
· Introduces a new approach that will control and reduce the
burden of regulation. A “one-in, one-out” approach, designed to
change the culture of government, would make sure that new
regulatory burdens on business are only brought in when reductions
can be made to existing regulation.
Business Secretary Vince 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.
“The Government has wide-ranging social and ecological goals
including protecting consumers and protecting the environment.
This requires increased social responsibility on the part of
businesses and individuals.
“This is a real challenge and it will not be easy. We need to
reduce regulation and at the same time meet our social and
environmental ambitions. This demands a radical change in culture
away from the tick box approach to regulation only as a last
resort. It’s a big task but one worth striving for.”
Notes to editors:
1. The Reducing Regulation Committee will stress-test regulatory
proposals making sure that only those of suitably high quality
(for example meeting good regulation principles) and suitably high
priority proceed.
2. ‘One-In – One-Out’ is a regulatory management system, whereby
any new regulatory cost is compensated by cuts to the cost of old
laws, and that the cut in regulatory cost must be greater than the
cost of the new regulation.
3. The Better Regulation Executive is responsible for
implementing the regulation agenda at the Department for Business
Innovation and Skills, and works across government to improve the
way new laws and regulations are created, cutting away unnecessary
red tape and being fair to business.
4. The “Forward Regulatory Programme” published in March by the
Better Regulation Executive identified 200 new regulations that
departments were planning to bring in between May 2010 and April
2011 with a cost of over £5 billion, and over 20 new regulations
beyond April 2011 with individual costs of over £50 million and
total costs of about £19 billion.
5. The intended small “challenge group” will encourage an
imaginative approach to non-regulatory alternatives to regulatory
proposals presented by Departments to the Reducing Regulation
Committee. The longer term aim would be to change the culture and
for Departments to propose non regulatory solutions.
Contacts:
BIS Press Office
NDS.BIS@coi.gsi.gov.uk
Nick Evans
Phone: 020 7215 3496
nick.evans@bis.gsi.gov.uk