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Policy for Growth

I would, and I have asked questions about that of the Minister in this very Chamber. It is important to prevent rural isolation following the disastrous closing of the post office network in rural areas under the previous Government. Only through a strong and vibrant private sector can our nation's long-term prosperity be assured. With that in mind, it is vital that we undertake measures to deregulate as soon as possible. I urge the Government to consult a document that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham produced on this issue. His economic policy review in 2007 presented 33 specific areas where it was thought that the repeal of, and amendments to, regulations could cut costs and improve business efficiency. I sit on the Regulatory Reform Committee, and I have severe concerns that it is simply not busy enough. I want the Committee to be one of the most active and busy in the House, which is why I support calls for the Government to bring forward a deregulation Bill as soon as possible and as a matter of urgency. Measures such as the scrapping of the home information packs produced no ill effects and scrapped regulations that did nothing but increase the burden of costs on consumers and business. We must continue that work. We must also do more to tackle the gold-plating that we are so famous for in this country. EU regulations are signed up to by many countries, some of which do not have the will to implement them, some of which do not have the administrative ability to implement them and some of which, unfortunately, have neither the will nor the administrative ability to implement them. We have both, and we are very good at implementing regulations. That is unsustainable and it puts a tremendous burden on our businesses. We need to look around Europe to see how countries deal with their regulations in a lighter way. If possible, we should adopt those approaches to make the UK more competitive. The answer to bad government and bad regulation is good government and good regulation. Regulations almost curtailed the growth of my business 15 years ago, when they caused a seven-year delay on a factory relocation. Fortunately, we managed to find a way through that.