BCC Boss Warns Of Heavy Legislative Burden On UK Businesses

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

18 February 2003

Writing in the Telegraph on Monday, Director-General of the British Chambers of Commerce, David Frost announced that the burden of regulation and legislation currently imposed on businesses in the United Kingdom is unacceptable, and is set to increase over the coming years.

Revealing that the 'red-tape burden' on British firms has increased from £10 billion a year in 2000 to a predicted £21 billion this year, Mr Frost revealed that:

'Time and agsin we sound warnings about the red-tape burden and time and again we seem to be ignored,' continuing: 'Government regulators abide only partially by their own rules to draw up regulatory impact assessments in advance. They rarely weigh up the benefits of the proposed legislation against the costs.'

Citing the results of a study commissioned by the BCC on the implementation of regulatory impact assessments - which are supposed to consider alternatives to regulation and present ways of achieving policy objectives through non-legislative means - Mr Frost revealed that:

'Over four years of regulation, only 11% of impact assessments even considered the possibility that there may be an alternative to legislation.'

The government is also falling short when it comes to making sure that the benefits of any proposed piece of legislation outweigh the likely costs, according to the BCC Director-General:

'For instance,' he wrote on Monday,' the Trade Department's assessment of the regulation which gives employees the right to request flexible working hours estimates that the benefits in terms of work/life balance and increase to the labour supply of mothers will be £90 million a year, but the cost to business will be £296 million each year - no alternative was proposed.'

Recommended