Business secretary Vince Cable underlined his commitment to cutting red tape for businesses at the Opportunity Sutton conference on Wednesday, June 13th.
He said small and medium-sized businesses in particular would benefit from his department’s commitment to working through the 22,000 regulations that currently affect business.
“The clutter and box-ticking is being systematically tackled and, of the 3,000 regulations we have got through so far, we have scrapped half of them.
“Also, any government minister who wants to introduce new regulation has to demonstrate that they are removing regulation of a comparable value to make way the new stuff. Ministers hate it but it’s a very good discipline.
“We are also dealing with employment regulation. I recognise that for many companies the process of hiring staff and dealing with how they perform is a big headache so we are looking to greatly simplify the tribunal system and make it more difficult to get to a tribunal because the parties have to conciliate in advance.
“The conversation and the settlement you reach then can’t be held against you in a tribunal.”