With the launch of the Red Tape Challenge website, the government is seeking views on "which regulations are working and which are not; what should be scrapped, what should be saved and what should be simplified". This will be done via consultations on the various regulations that affect each sector, each lasting a few weeks, at the end of which ministers will have three months to justify the regulations or they’ll be scrapped.
There will also be "cross-cutting themes" – employment law; pensions; company law; equality; health and safety; and environment legislation – which will be open for comment throughout the whole campaign. Although the government cannot scrap EU regulations, it is also seeking comments on how EU legislation has been implemented in the UK.
With more than 21,000 regulations involved, the task is huge. And given the failure of earlier attempts to reform regulation, sceptics could be forgiven for not holding their breath this time. Last July, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg launched the Your Freedom website – also dedicated to "repealing unnecessary laws and stripping away excessive regulation on businesses". Yet just three months later, the sheer volume of information led to the project being put on hold.
Other priorities
It is also the case that for managing directors and owners of print businesses regulatory, reform is not always front of mind when they’re asked what keeps them awake at night. The BPIF’s quarterly Printing Outlook industry trading trends survey invites companies to specify their top three current business concerns. The latest survey, conducted this April, once again revealed that the top business concern was ‘competitors pricing below cost’ (selected by 85% of respondents), with ‘paper or board prices’ identified by 32% of respondents, and ‘profit levels are insufficient to encourage investment’ cited by 24% of respondents. Only 5% cited ‘regulatory burdens’.
But please don’t let scepticism or apathy put you off. We have an opportunity to make our industry’s concerns known in relation to over-regulation and the BPIF will be responding to this consultation. We would like to hear about any regulations that you believe should be removed because they are unnecessary, or that you would like to see made simpler or less onerous. We’d also like views on any regulations that should be retained because they are working well, or strengthened perhaps (pre-packs is one that has been in our sights for some time). In each instance, though, we’ll have to offer a sound rationale for why reform is needed. So we’ll need the name of the regulations concerned, your reasons for putting these forward for reform, and what changes you’d like made.
You can email Andrew at andrew.brown@bpif.org.uk
Andrew Brown is public affairs advisor at the BPIF
An opportunity to make our regulation concerns known
'One in, one out' was how the government first defined its approach to the emotive subject of regulation. With the launch of its new Red Tape Challenge on 7 April, though, this has now become a new drive to cut the number of regulations overall.
