Cable vows to cut back red tape

While most businesses would accept there’s a vital need for regulation in areas such as health and safety, UK SMEs are clearly looking for simplification to focus on what they do best - fuelling economic growth.

The fact that SMEs tell us this concerns them more than access to finance is a clear indicator that they still feel over-burdened by red tape.

HSE is working to make health and safety clearer and simpler for businesses to understand and comply with, while maintaining essential protections for workers and the public. We have reduced the number of proactive inspections by a third over the last year by better targeting of those inspections on higher risk industries and poor performers.

The talk of reducing around 3,000 regulations and at the same time focusing on health and safety is misleading. There are only 200 health and safety regulations in total, so any reduction in these will be a tiny percentage of the 3,000, and so far only 21 have been considered.

This all-out attack on safety will have lethal consequences for workers and the public alike as businesses are given the green light to cut corners.

Vince Cable's set of plans will drag the clock back and goes hand in hand with massive cuts to the enforcement arm of the health and safety executive.

This isn't about cutting red tape, it's about cutting the throat of safety regulations and the trade unions will mobilise a massive campaign of resistance.

The Government's efforts on deregulation are welcome.

Today's announcements are good news if they are the beginning, not the end, of the deregulation story.

Excessive regulation costs time and money, both of which businesses would rather spend on developing new products, hiring staff and building up British business both here and abroad.

In these tough times, businesses need to focus all their energies on creating jobs and growth, not being tied up in unnecessary red tape.

I've listened to those concerns and we're determined to put common sense back into areas like health and safety, which will reduce costs and fear of burdensome inspections.

Today's announcement injects fresh impetus into our drive to cut red tape. We have identified the red tape and now we are going to cut it.

We're getting out of the way by bringing common sense back to health and safety. We will now be holding departments' feet to the fire to ensure all unnecessary red tape is cut.