Cameron to confront EU on red tape

David Cameron has said he will take the fight on red tape to the EU after a report by business leaders found it is costing UK firms billions of pounds. The UK prime minister's business taskforce said relaxing the rules on health and safety compliance alone may save £2 billion. Other ideas include simplifying waste collection and chemical regulations and capping fees on digital transactions. The European Commission said it had already scrapped thousands of rules and more requirements were being reviewed. Some of the UK's leading figures, including the bosses of Kingfisher and Diageo, will present the findings of the report to a meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday.

The prime minister said EU rules were too often a "handicap" to firms and Brussels must move "further and faster" to curb them. The taskforce's report seeks to draw attention to a welter of "burdensome" rules holding back the overall competitiveness of British firms as well as specific issues for exporters, start-ups and those developing new products or expanding. It came up with a list of 30 major changes to EU regulations or proposals which it said could save UK companies huge sums of money every year and allow them to expand more quickly.

The recommendations for reform include:

• Scrapping the requirement for all SMEs (small and medium enterprises), irrespective of their business, to keep written health and safety assessments;
• abandoning plans to force sole traders to pay fees to register to collect and transport waste even in small and harmless quantities;
• streamlining "costly and complex" chemicals legislation, and
• fast-tracking plans for a cap on fees for payment by credit card, online and mobile phone.

The report also calls for the EU to adopt a version of the UK's 'one-in, two-out' rule, where no new regulation can be adopted unless there is an equivalent reduction elsewhere.

Cameron, who commissioned the report after the last meeting of the EU Council in June, said the rules were preventing British business from maximising the benefits of the single market in goods and services.

"This report makes clear that there are lots of simple and practical ways to cut EU red tape and save businesses across Europe tens of billions of euros," he 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."

The prime minister has written to other EU leaders to urge them to commit to "concrete measures" to reduce superfluous regulation when they gather in Brussels next week.

"I will be calling for a clear commitment to sweep away unnecessary burdens and to unleash private sector growth," Cameron said.

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