Vince Cable announces plans to scale back some red tape
VINCE Cable will today unveil plans to cut some red tape, although the reforms are likely to be criticised as too weak.
The business secretary will say that the coalition will not extend the right to flexible working to parents of 17 year olds as planned on 6 April, while companies with less than 250 employees will not be required to give staff time off to train.
Start-up firms and companies with less than ten employees will be exempted from all new domestic regulation for three years, Cable will say.
However, critics counter that the vast majority of new regulations are written in Brussels, making domestic guarantees worthless.
Meanwhile, Cable will pledge to introduce so-called “sunset clauses” for all new domestic regulations, which retire rules after a set period of time. But this will not apply to European rules either.
There are a staggering 22,000 individual regulations and Cable will today announce an audit designed to root out costly and pointless rules.
However, he is sure to draw fire from business groups who will say that the reforms do not go far enough.