Retailers call for real action on regulation
GEORGE Osborne must slash red tape to inspire confidence and boost economic growth, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) argued today in its submission to the chancellor ahead of next month’s budget.
The promised bonfire of red tape has yet to emerge, businesses are being unfairly hit with higher taxes and schemes such as enterprise zones need to be extended to the whole country, the BRC said.
The government promised a “one in, one out” system to prevent new regulations adding to the overall burden on firms. However, this has not worked as hoped, the BRC claims.
“Too often the proposed ‘outs’ are not relevant to the sector affected by the ‘in’,” the group said. “Scrapping long-obsolete war time trading regulations does not count – this has to be about removing rules that are actually holding business back now.”
The group cites the Grocery Code Adjudicator, which seeks to protect suppliers against unfair supermarket behaviour, as an example of a rule which is unnecessary – the industry argues mechanisms are already in place to achieve exactly the same aim.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills denied the government was failing to cut red tape, pointing to the plethora of consumer protection rules recently consolidated into one single piece of legislation.
The BRC also asked Osborne to raise business rates in line with predicted consumer price inflation of 3.2 per cent – not the planned 5.6 per cent.