Local businesses benefit from cuts in red tape

A pledge by Chancellor Gordon Brown that the Government is to stop adding unnecessary British bureaucracy to EU laws is a long overdue step forward, claims a Rochdale Euro-MP.

Business surveys have suggested that the length of EU rules and regulations can triple during the process of putting them on to the UK statute book, posing an unnecessary risk to British competitiveness.

British civil servants have been accused of 'gold-plating' EU laws, making them unnecessarily complicated by adding to them in ways never originally suggested while other countries do the bare minimum. Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies says that Whitehall mandarins are often more to blame than Brussels bureaucrats for over-regulation.

EU directives tend to set out agreed targets while leaving it to national governments to decide how to achieve them in a 'proportional' manner.

UK farmers, for example, are required to register the birth of calves within 27 days or face a penalty, but the same EU law applied in Spain gives farmers six months in which to comply. The Cabinet Office has published guidelines intended to ensure that European laws were implemented in the "clearest and least burdensome way possible".

Welcoming the new policy Chris Davies said that UK civil servants had for too long were wrapping the rules in red tape and then blamed Brussels for the size of the package.

"The announcement by the Government is long overdue, but at last they are taking responsibility for the extra regulations they have burdened businesses with, rather than continuing to blame Brussels.

"As someone who has also been an MP I know the length of EU regulations can triple during the process of putting them on to the UK statute book, which also poses an unnecessary risk to British competitiveness."

"I know of butchers being told by the Foods Standards Agency that they must buy new equipment costing thousands of pounds if they want to dress meat for farmers' markets, but the EU rules amount to nothing more than the basic hygiene requirements taught to every student of domestic science!

"It's crazy, and unnecessary, and it gives the European Union a bad reputation for no good reason at all."

Meanwhile the European Commission has announced that it intends to examine some 900 EU rules to assess whether they can be withdrawn or modified to reduce difficulties for business.