Menu calorie counts ‘only for large chains’ in red tape bonfire
CALORIE counting on menus could be scrapped for medium-sized businesses under plans to rip up red tape, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.
The Government is looking at expanding what counts as a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) to release more companies from the “clutches” of different types of regulation from which SMEs are exempt.
When Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled his mini-Budget on Friday, he said tax cuts must come with radical reforms to improve Britain’s trend growth rate. Telling MPs that there were “too many barriers for enterprise” the Chancellor promised a “new approach to break them down” which meant “reforming the supply side of our economy”.
He promised to update the Commons in the “coming weeks” about reforms to the “planning system, business regulations, childcare, immigration, agricultural productivity and digital infrastructure”.
The Telegraph understands that the Government is looking at raising “de minimis” regulation thresholds, whereby red tape does not apply to companies below a certain size.
A target of the reform is likely to be a policy introduced by Boris Johnson’s government in April requiring restaurants, cafés and takeaways in England with more than 250 staff to print on menus, websites and delivery platforms how many calories are in meals. The policy, part of a strategy for tackling obesity, was seen by critics as a “nanny state” intrusion. A Whitehall source told The Telegraph that the policy pushed by the “healthy food lobby” had placed burdens on the hospitality sector.
On the broader policy of lifting firms “out of the clutches of existing regulation”, the Whitehall source said: “If you look at the way SMEs are defined it’s a threshold of 250 employees.
“The idea is that if you can raise that quite significantly you’ll be able to take a large chunk of businesses out of certain regulations.”
While the Government’s plans for cutting red tape are likely to please many Tory MPs, one Tory backbencher told The Telegraph: “If we deregulate, are we going to have cowboys?”