§ 20. Mr. ForthTo ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many regulations have been introduced and how many abolished since 1 May 1997. [106608]
§ Mr. StringerIt is the Government's policy to introduce regulation only when really necessary and to ensure that it imposes the minimum burden to achieve its objective. The Government also insists that a regulatory impact assessment is carried out whenever regulations are likely to have an impact on business, charities or voluntary organisations. The number of regulatory impact assessments is recorded in twice-yearly Command Papers which are placed in the Libraries of the House. Listing the absolute number of regulations made is meaningless. If one assumes that the term regulations means Statutory Instruments, the total would include all those with no impact on business, every deregulatory order, every routine air traffic and road closure order, as well as those that have lapsed and those laid in order to revoke existing Statutory Instruments.