REMOVING REGULATORY BURDEN ON BUSINESS
(10 December 2003)

The Government's Regulatory Reform Action Plan, announced today by the Chancellor in his Pre Budget Report, has over 650 deregulatory measures to benefit business, charities and the public services. The plan brings together reforms to simplify and remove existing burdens across government.

Commenting on the launch of the plan, Douglas Alexander, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said:'Over 240 reforms have been delivered by government departments since the original version of the action plan was published last year. This updated plan includes new proposals benefiting both the public and private sector. Many deregulatory proposals, ranging from reforming the patents law to support innovation, to simplifying procurement procedures for SMEs, through to streamlining data flows and information requests in the health service, have been added.

'This revised Regulatory Reform Action Plan is a clear sign of our commitment to the better regulation agenda: legislating only where necessary, doing so in a 'light touch' way, and deregulating wherever possible. This agenda can help underpin our drive to improve productivity and reform our public services. We are committed to delivering further reforms as this plan demonstrates.'

MEASURES TO BENEFIT THE PRIVATE SECTOR

Measures already introduced to reduce unnecessary business costs include:

• licensing reforms, including increased flexibility over opening hours, saving business in the order of £1.9 billion in the first 10 years;
• a new, single regulator for the telecommunications and broadcasting industry, OFCOM, producing significant cost-savings for business and, for example, enabling speedy business start-ups;
• business tenancies reforms modernising procedures for renewing or terminating business tenancies, saving businesses approximately £6.5m a year in court costs alone; and
• removal of limits to the number of partners in a firm, estimated to save £10,000 per relevant partnership.

New measures coming on stream include:

• modernising and streamlining the planning processes thereby improving the delivery of public services and providing cost savings and investment clarity for the private sector;
• making it easier for businesses to obtain the patent protection essential to protect innovation;
• radically reforming company law, creating a new framework that meets the needs of business today, reflecting the particular needs of small businesses and creating an internationally competitive framework for all UK business; and,
• rationalising government information requests to farmers, in the whole farm approach (WFA) project, significantly reducing overlapping bureaucracy and enabling both farmers and government to do more effective project management and strategic planning.

Measures to benefit SMEs in the Regulatory Reform Action Plan include:

• Audit threshold to be raised from £1 million to £5.6 million, freeing up 69,000 businesses.
• The VAT flat rate scheme which is saving 672,000 small businesses from having to complete detailed VAT returns.

The regulatory action plan can be found by clicking here.