Government 'flouting one-in, one-out policy on red tape', says BCC

16 Jul 2012

A leading business group has called on the Government to review its policy on deregulation after it found that a number of new regulations are bypassing the so-called ‘one-in, one-out’ policy.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) claims that half of all new proposals for regulation last year were ‘not in scope’ of the Government’s commitment to adopt a ‘one-in, one-out’ approach to regulation.

‘This needs to be reviewed so that the rule applies to all relevant regulations, otherwise it makes a mockery of the whole system,’ the report states.

The lobby group also claims that there is ‘no co-ordinated approach to the regulatory process across government departments’ and called for a change in culture across Whitehall.

‘The Government has a long way to go before it can claim it has got to grips with its regulatory output,’ said the BCC’s director general, John Longworth. ‘Whitehall is holding deregulation back and often creating badly-designed regulation, and at the same time businesses are telling us that the weight of European legislation is making them less competitive in global markets.’

He added: ‘Only substantive reductions in red tape will give businesses the confidence to grow, innovate and create employment in the long-term.’

Meanwhile, the Federation of Small Businesses said that the research revealed that ‘the reality, as opposed to the promises, is that the amount of regulation strangling small businesses is increasing, not decreasing’.