Health & Safety Update (August 2010)

One-in, One-out Regulation System

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, recently announced a comprehensive package of measures to support the Government's drive to tackle unnecessary government interference and red tape. The measures aim to help transform the relationship between people and government by changing how regulations are drawn up, introduced and implemented.

The announcement means that government interference in businesses and third sector organisations will have to meet much more rigorous tests before being introduced.

From 1 September, a groundbreaking new One-in, One-out system will begin.  When Ministers seek to introduce new regulations which impose costs on business or the third sector, they will have to identify current regulations with an equivalent value that can be removed.

The new rule has been designed to apply initially to domestic legislation affecting businesses and the third sector, with Ministers intending to expand the system in due course. To reinforce this radical new approach to how Whitehall will introduce new laws and regulations, and to ensure that the costs of red tape are being properly addressed across the entire British economy, the Government has also:

• agreed a set of Principles of Regulation that Government departments must apply when considering new regulations impacting upon business, social enterprises, individuals and community groups
• asked the independent Regulatory Policy Committee to perform the role of externally scrutinising the evidence and analysis supporting new regulatory proposals, prior to policy decisions being made
• provided the opportunity for the public and businesses to tell the Government which onerous regulations they believe should be removed or changed through the Your Freedom website.  

Ministers will also be taking a rigorous approach to tackling EU regulations. The Government will engage earlier in the Brussels policy process, take strong cross Government negotiating lines, and work to end so-called 'gold-plating' of EU regulations so that when European rules are transposed into UK law it is done without putting British business at a competitive disadvantage to other European-based companies.