Jonathan Djanogly, the Member of Parliament for the Huntingdon Constituency, has this week commended the appointment by the Conservative Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary, Tim Yeo, of a team of 'Better Regulation Advisers' to examine ways of improving government regulation and cutting down on red tape.
The panel of eight, from across a wide spectrum of business interests, will consider suggestions from businesses and consumers of all shapes and sizes in a bid to reduce the amount of needless government interference. The dramatic increase in red tape in the last five years has cost business in Britain a staggering £15bn according to the latest figures from the British Chamber of Commerce and has led the CBI to warn that Britain is 'sleepwalking into decline'. It is also believed to be a large factor in demoralisation in vital public services such as teaching and healthcare, which is driving people out of those professions in droves.
Mr Djanogly, who is on the Trade and Industry Select Committee, explained:
"Productivity growth has halved since Labour came to power because they are stifling businesses with endless regulations - over the last five years they have dictated an average of 15 new regulations every working day. It is small businesses such as farmers and publicans that are most affected by this bureaucratic avalanche, spending an average of 20 hours a week dealing with red tape.
"Practically every business I visit around the constituency complains about how the new employment regulations or environmental charges are stifling their ability to move forward - the competitive advantages that we once enjoyed are now disappearing and now that trading conditions have become tougher, businesses are telling me that these regulations really are making a difference to their profitability.
This bottom-up approach from Tim Yeo represents a different way of doing things from the current Government, but also from previous Conservative Governments. The agenda will be driven by ordinary business people finding solutions to ordinary practical business problems, and we will then be able to make some cast-iron commitments before the election on which regulations we would strike down if we got into office. No other party can offer a more common sense approach than this."
Notes to editors
The number of regulations in Britain has risen at an increasingly rapid rate in the last five years. In 2001, 4,642 regulations governing all aspects of UK life came into force, the equivalent of a new one every 26 minutes. Recent regulations that could be among the first to be considered by the 'Better Regulation' panel are the proposed EU directve on Agency workers and one that compels firms to fit seatbelts to forklift trucks. The former will give temporary workers the right to earn as much as a permanent employee at a firm if they have been temping there for 6 months, and companies argue this will cost businesses that use temps hundreds of millions of pounds every year. The latter is claimed to cost up to £1,500 per forklift truck, a huge cost when the amount of accidents that would be prevented by fitting seatbelts is believed to be minimal."