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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the remarks by the Prime Minister on 22 February (HC Deb, col 22), how they reached the conclusion that the cost of EU regulation will be going down, not up.

The Government's position, as set out by the Prime Minister to Parliament on 22 February, is that the UK will be stronger, safer and better off remaining in a reformed EU.

Under our new settlement the European Commission has agreed for the first time to set specific targets to reduce the overall burden on businesses in key sectors. The European Council Declaration on Competitiveness commits to ‘doing more to reduce the overall burden of EU regulation, especially on SMEs and micro enterprises’.

To implement this, the European Commission has agreed to introduce a new burden review mechanism. It will conduct an annual survey of the burdens imposed on businesses at the EU level. This process will identify legislation that should be revised or repealed to bring costs down, and will mean that limiting the cost of regulation will be a priority when proposals are developed, negotiated and agreed.