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Getting rid of red tape Print E-mail
Written by Dr Eamonn Butler   
Thursday, 01 November 2007
Labour MP Andrew Miller, head of the House of Commons Regulatory Reform Committee, was our guest at a Power Lunch yesterday.

He – and indeed anyone involved in regulatory reform – has a difficult job. I'm all in favour of checks and balances so that Parliament has control over the executive. Maybe it stops the state expanding and power being centralized. But when you actually want to do something useful, like cutting regulation, it can be a nightmare. I'm sure that the Committee would love to deregulate lots of things, but by the time both houses of Parliament have got through with it, not a lot actually gets deregulated.

 So we continue to add more regulations, maybe 300 a year, than we ever get rid of. One of our lunch guests made the point that Parliamentarians' whole purpose, as they see it, is to pass laws – which in turn require regulations. Attacking regulations is seen as an attack on them. So why should they agree to it? And of course if they did suspend a regulation and someone got hurt, everyone would be blaming them. Much easier to keep the red tape.

So if anyone has any ideas on how to make progress on this issue, I'd like to know.
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