They wanted to rip up red tape
A FORMER Tory housing minister admitted yesterday that not enough time had been spent looking at fire safety in older buildings.
Conservative MP Mark Prisk, who was in the post from 2012 to 2013, made the comment amid fears that a Government focus on cutting “red tape” may have compromised fire safety regulations.
One of David Cameron’s pledges as prime minister was to lead “the first government in modern history to leave office having reduced the overall burden of regulation”.
He said in September 2011: “We have the new one-in, one-out rule, so any minister who comes to me wanting to introduce a regulation has to abolish one first.”
A trawl of comments by Cabinet ministers shows his government took great pride in cutting regulations.
In June 2013, then home secretary Theresa May said: “Through the action we have taken to reduce bureaucracy and red tape this Government have cut the number of hours taken on bureaucracy by 4.5million man hours.”
In March 2013, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: “Through the red tape challenge, we have committed to scrapping, improving or simplifying at least 3000 regulations. We introduced the ground-breaking one-in, one-out rule, which has saved businesses around £1billion in regulatory costs.”
Two former housing minister also praised the virtues of cutting red tape.
Grant Shapps said in April 2012: “Excessive red tape in the sector would push up rents and reduce choice for tenants. That is why we are streamlining licensing processes for houses in multiple occupation and scrapping plans for an expensive and counterproductive state register of every landlord.”
Brandon Lewis said in February 2012: “Businesses across my constituency and elsewhere, and organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses, are making it clear that red tape and bureaucracy are the biggest blocks to growth and employment.”
In October 2011, when he was education secretary, Michael Gove said: “When it comes to dealing with bureaucracy and red tape, the officials in my department are allies. They are terrible, swift swords cutting through the bureaucracy that has so far held this country back.”
In February 2014, International Development Secretary Priti Patel bragged: “This Government are going further than any British Government have gone in reducing the burden of regulation and cutting red tape. This is all about boosting business confidence and job creation in particular.”
And Communities and Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid said in March 2016: “We are proud that, in the previous Government, we made a £10billion cut in red tape for businesses and we are committed to make a further £10billion cut.”
In June 2015, Javid said: “Cutting regulation for businesses is like a tax cut for those businesses. The only difference is that it does not cost the Exchequer anything, so we should cut as much regulation as possible.”