Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many staff in her Department have been tasked as part of the Red Tape Review with reviewing departmental archival holdings identifying EU regulatory burdens that had been identified by previous deregulation audits.

We do not centrally hold information on the number of staff tasked with reviewing departmental archival holdings identifying EU regulatory burdens that had been identified by previous deregulation audits.

The government is however - via the Retained EU Law review and reform programme and the wider Smarter Regulation programme - committed to reviewing regulations on an ongoing basis to identify where improvements can be made and where the cost on business or consumers can be reduced. As part of this the government has passed the Retained EU Law (REUL) Act, giving departments the powers to reform their stock of REUL where appropriate.