Conservative push to bin EU bureaucracy and go for growth in the Congleton Constituency
Last week, six British business leaders reported back to the Prime Minister with an ambitious package of 30 reforms to slash EU red tape. Taken together, the proposed measures could save Britain tens of billions of pounds: securing our economic recovery and creating jobs in the Congleton Constituency.
The taskforce’s report – Cut EU Red Tape – targets burdensome rules in five key areas of business that will affect Congleton:
1. Starting out;
2. Exporting;
3. Expanding a business;
4. Developing new products;
5. Overall competitiveness.
The PM had asked six business leaders to present their report directly to Cabinet, reflecting the seriousness of the issue, and the Conservative Party’s determination to reform the EU to work better for hardworking people in Congleton.
Welcoming the report, local MP Fiona Bruce said:
‘It’s vital that local business gets access to the EU’s single market. But all too often EU rules are a handicap for firms in my constituency hampering their efforts. Hardworking people, particularly owners of small firms, are forced to spend far too much time complying with pointless, burdensome and costly regulations. That means less time developing a new product, winning contracts or hiring young recruits. The Conservatives are determined to change that and to get the EU working for business, not against it.’
‘That’s why the Prime Minister got this Taskforce together: so we could establish from businesses what they really need. This report makes clear there are lots of simple and practical ways to cut EU red tape and save tens of billions of pounds.’
Prime Minister David Cameron said:
‘We must now persuade our European partners and the European Commission to listen to business and to move faster to reform the way Europe regulates. At next week’s European Council, I’ll be calling for a clear commitment to sweep away unnecessary bureaucratic barriers and to unleash private sector growth - helping to secure the economic recovery for all.’
ENDS
NOTES to Editor
Specific proposals
The business-led proposals include:
· Fast-tracking measures to set a maximum cap on the fees that could be applied to card, internet and mobile payments, thus reducing costs for retailers and SMEs and through them for consumers, all of whom deserve a clear, comprehensive framework to cover this area.
- Scrapping EU-wide requirements for small businesses in low-risk sectors to keep written health and safety risk assessments. These record-keeping requirements cost businesses time and money. This would benefit at least 220,000 UK small businesses and save businesses across the EU an estimated €2.7 billion.
- Abandoning plans to force small businesses such as one-man gardening firms and carpenters to pay fees to register to collect and transport waste, even when the materials involved are harmless and the quantities small. Abolishing these rules could benefit 460,000 small businesses in the UK and many more across Europe.
- Taking urgent action to simplify costly and complex chemicals regulation, which threatens the competiveness of hundreds of small firms.
Taskforce members
The six members of the taskforce are:
- Marc Bolland (Chief Executive M&S);
- Ian Cheshire (CEO Kingfisher);
- Glenn Cooper (Managing Director, ATG Access);
- Louise Makin (CEO BTG);
- Dale Murray CBE (Entrepreneur and Angel Investor);
- Paul Walsh (Diageo).
Principles of the Taskforce
The Taskforce have also set out how to prevent similarly unnecessary legislation in the future by getting EU law-makers to put business, not bureaucracy, first and follow clear principles that should be the DNA of any new EU laws.
They propose a new common sense filter to ensure that all new legislation is rigorously assessed to ensure that it is pro-growth and pro-innovation. This would include not accepting any new regulation unless cuts of equivalent or greater value can be implemented, as pioneered in the UK with our ‘One-in, Two-out’ rule, variants of which have been adopted by France, Italy and Spain.
And they have ensured that Brussels bureaucrats can easily remember these principles by proposing a seven-letter mnemonic, based on the word ‘COMPETE’:
? C – competitiveness test
? O – one in, one out
? M – measure impacts
? P – proportionate rules
? E – exemptions and lighter rules
? T – targets for burden reduction
? E – evaluate and enforce
