"You can have too much regulation" Conservatives tell CIEH conference

22 January 2010

Policy makers have got lazy and become reliant on inspections and fines, the shadow minister for business, enterprise and regulatory reform has today told a conference organized by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health.

Speaking at the CIEH Earned Autonomy or Business as Usual event John Penrose MP stated that the 'Nudge Report' says policy makers have got lazy.

"Policy makers have relied on inspections and fines as the first weapon in their armory and will miss out on many things that work well.

"There are all sorts of different techniques that can be used, but policy makers tend not to use marketing but forcing."

The Conservative MP for Weston-Super Mare said that regulation is only one way of moving British society and the economy forward:

"Regulation is vital in any modern state but you can have too much. It isn't the answer that when you see something going wrong that you set up another QUANGO."

Mr Penrose said that a Conservative government would accelerate the process towards risk based inspections, developing a systematic, structured way of finding the low risk premises so that local authority resources can be targeted more effectively.

The one-day conference brought together leading industry and business figures to discuss new approaches to legislation.

Delegates also heard from Abby Miller, chair of the British Retail Consortium Risk and Safety Policy Action Group; Philip Cullum, Acting ceo of Consumer Focus; Dawn Welham, technical director of Asda Stores ltd as well as others.

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