Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I will make some progress first. Of course, I will give way as a matter of courtesy to the hon. Gentlemen on the Conservative Benches—and they are all gentlemen—if they so wish. Applying better regulation principles to new regulatory proposals is crucial, but the Government must also address the stock of existing regulation if we are to ease the regulatory burden. If regulation is unnecessary, over-complicated, difficult to comply with or poorly targeted, we must do something about it. Two key aspects of the Government’s better regulation programme are aimed at tackling the existing stock of regulation: the project to reduce administrative burdens and forthcoming departmental simplification plans. The administrative burdens project will reduce the cost and burden to business of administering regulation by focusing regulatory resources on areas of greatest risk. Reducing the burden of complying with regulation for the vast majority of compliant business should result in one third fewer inspections and 25 per cent. less form-filling. The UK will be one of the first countries in the world to measure the total administrative burden on business and set ambitious targets for their reduction. In addition, all Departments will have published simplification plans by the time of this year’s pre-Budget report. As well as containing proposals to meet targets for the reduction in admin burdens, those plans will include wider simplification measures to deregulate, consolidate and rationalise regulation. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Health and Safety Executive have been first to produce their simplification plans, which are now available for consultation.