Business leaders propose 30 reforms to cut EU red tape

Top business leaders will today hand the Prime Minister an ambitious package of 30 reforms to slash EU red tape and save British companies tens of billions of pounds. The coalition government’s Business Taskforce will call for sweeping changes to get rid of rules and regulations that are a barrier to growth and that hamper the efforts of British business to thrive in the global race. The taskforce’s report – Cut EU Red Tape – will target burdensome rules in five key areas of business – starting out; exporting; expanding a business; developing new products; and overall competitiveness.

In an unusual move, the PM has asked the six business leaders on the taskforce - 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) and Paul Walsh (Diageo) – to present their report to Cabinet. This reflects the importance of this issue and the PM’s determination to reform the EU to make it more competitive.

Welcoming the report, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, said: "It’s vital that business can take full advantage of the EU’s single market. But all too often EU rules are a handicap for firms, hampering their efforts to succeed in the global race. Business people, particularly owners of small firms, are forced to spend too much time complying with pointless, burdensome and costly regulations and that means less time developing a new product, winning contracts or hiring young recruits. I’m determined to change that and to get the EU working for business, not against it."

Continuing Mr Cameron said: "That’s why I got this Taskforce together, so we could establish from business what they really need. 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. 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."

The business-led proposals include:

• 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.
• 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.