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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which regulations he has asked the EU Commission to (a) amend and (b) repeal on the basis of their effects on businesses in the UK.

The Government regularly presses the European Commission to amend or repeal EU rules in order to minimise the regulatory burdens imposed on UK business.

In particular, we do this through the European Commission’s Regulatory Fitness (REFIT) programme – established in 2012 to review the stock of existing EU legislation in order to identify burdens, inconsistencies, gaps or ineffective measures and address them. This has generated progress in areas of significant UK priority, including Occupational Health and Safety and the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) – where the Commission’s 2016 Work Programme put forward burden-cutting proposals

Overall, the Commission’s 2015 and 2016 Work Programmes proposed 100 withdrawals or modifications of pending proposals, and 39 repeals and 56 evaluations of existing EU laws.

As part of the UK’s settlement with the EU, the European Commission is committed to reviewing the burden of regulation each year and introducing specific targets to reduce costs for businesses in the most burdensome areas.