Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of the annual cost to UK businesses of implementing EU harmonised legislation.

The Government produces Impact Assessments that set out the impacts to business of legislation. These are published on the LEGISLATION.GOV.UK website.

The UK has one of the lightest regulatory regimes in the OECD. The Netherlands, also in the EU, has the lightest. The European Commission has already reformed its approach to regulation, reducing the number of new initiatives proposed in its annual work programmes by over 80 per cent since 2014.

As part of the UK’s settlement with the EU, the European Commission is now committed to reviewing the burden of regulation each year, looking in particular at cutting red tape for small businesses. For the first time ever, specific targets to reduce costs for businesses will be introduced in the most burdensome areas.