Business of the House

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I must gently disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The backlog of over-18-week waiters is going down and the figures for December were the best on record. In the broader context, the average waiting times for in-patients and out-patients before they start treatment are lower than at the time of the last election, and the number of patients waiting for more than a year is half what it was in May 2010.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

May we please have a debate on deregulation? This week saw the publication of the third progress report on the Government’s one-in, one-out policy. A debate would allow the House to examine the extent to which the progress made by the Government is being completely outweighed by new regulations from the European Union, which are not covered by the one-in, one-out policy.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. There may be an opportunity in the context of the Budget debate to discuss that matter further. He is right to point out that from January 2011 to April this year, the one-in, one-out system will result in the net change in domestic regulation remaining at or close to zero. Eleven of the 14 Departments report a net reduction or no change in the regulatory costs to business. The red tape challenge has so far considered more than 1,200 regulations, and has agreed to scrap or improve well over half of them.