Government Should Get Its Own House In Order On Red Tape

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 24th May 2005

Responding to Gordon Brown's promise to work with business to identify "outmoded and unnecessary" regulation, Liberal Democrat Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary, Norman Lamb MP said:

Gordon Brown is right to challenge an overbearing inspection regime, but he says nothing about the constant flow of new regulation.

This year's Queen's Speech contained 50 proposed Bills. We have got to tackle this obsession with regulating everything that moves. Regulation should be the last resort not the first instinct of Government.

It is a bit rich for the Chancellor to challenge business over red tape when there's such a mismatch between the Government's own rhetoric and its abject failure to reduce the burden of regulation."