§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry pursuant to the answer of 16 June 2004,Official Report, column 959W, on deregulation, what formal assessment her Department has made of the negative economic impact of obsolete EU regulation. [179969]
§ Jacqui SmithThe Department has not carried out a formal assessment of the economic impact of obsolete EU regulation. In part, this obsolete legislation consists of a number of legal acts with time-limited application (e.g. the fixing of agricultural prices in a given harvest year, or the grant of a particular time-limited status, derogation or financial support to a member state or other entity). This type of obsolete legislation would therefore not have an economic impact once it is no longer applicable. The European Commission is currently taking steps to remove such legislation, along with other measures to secure a reliable, up-to-date and user-friendly body of EC law as described in its February 2003 Communication, "Updating and Simplifying the Community Acquis" (COM (2003) 71).