Why only a little?

Almost everybody who has any experience of business or commerce feels that a major handicap facing British business is the amount of red tape they have to contend with - the regulations which are added annually, the paperwork which must be completed and the all-pervasive interference of government and its quangos. The cost on business is variously estimated up to £100 billion annually. (The SFA have now announced that they intend to be involved significantly in all senior banking appointments. The business community thought that they had dismissed the notion that the government can pick winners, but now the state is deciding to pick victors.)

Even Lord Mandelson feels that there must be a reduction. He called for a reduction, reducing costs by about £3.4 billion by next April, plus a further reduction in obsolete regulations costing about £5 billion annually.

Perhaps he is behind the government announcement, reported in today's Telegraph, that in view of the recession and business difficulties some proposed new regulations will be dropped, and others will be deferred until 2013. The saving for business is estimated at £3.5 billion, out of a new imposition totalling £9 billion.

So two thirds of the extra red tape is till to be imposed.

Kenneth Clark, at the Tories' conference, promised that if elected they would cut one old regulation for every new one introduced, and promised to look savagely any any regulation "voted" as the worst. It is a small gesture, but certainly better than increasing the burden significantly even during a recession.