§ Q6. Mr. JenkinTo ask the Prime Minister what conclusions were reached at his seminar on deregulation held on 2 February.
§ The Prime MinisterWe agreed to review all 7,000 regulations currently imposed on businesses, with the aim of abolishing regulations wherever possible. Where they cannot be abolished—for overriding reasons of health or safety, for example—we shall work to simplify them. We agreed also that future proposals for new regulations must always spell out the costs to businesses of complying with them. We must not impose burdensome regulations on business unless they are absolutely necessary, and we are determined not to do so.
§ Mr. JenkinI thank my right hon. Friend for his response, which will be most welcome to businesses in my constituency and in all other parts of the country. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that our right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and his junior Ministers have absolute freedom to seek out and destroy unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation, in whichever Government Department or whichever institution it may reside?
§ The Prime MinisterMy hon. Friend is entirely right. That is precisely the task that I have given to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. There is a problem with excessive regulation in Brussels, but there is also a problem in Whitehall. We need to deal with both.