The following has been supplied by the TUC:
Ideas for business self-regulation floated by the Conservatives prior to and immediately after they won the election have resurfaced. Top Tories had talked of introducing a system of 'earned autonomy', where firms with better safety records could opt-out of official health and safety inspections. Other ideas included more partnership systems, along the lines of the contentious US voluntary protection programmes scaled back when President Obama came to power. The ideas re-emerged in a 1 November speech by business and enterprise minister Mark Prisk to the Local and National Regulators annual conference. He told regulators 'when regulation becomes heavy-handed, inefficient, prescriptive and risk-averse it drags down the ability of businesses to grow, prosper and create jobs.' He added: 'The challenge is to transform the regulatory landscape so that the system delivers essential protections whilst avoiding unnecessary interference in the day to day work of hard-working business people seeking to innovate and grow and thereby delivering the jobs and wealth we need.' Proposals highlighted by the minister included more use of 'co-regulation, where business shares a degree of regulatory responsibility, for example through industry bodies setting professional and working standards.' Also on his deregulatory wishlist was 'earned recognition' - where regulators recognise business activities that support compliance and reduce intervention, creating a stronger incentive for private sector led compliance.' Conservative and government talk of business self-regulation took a backseat in the months following the banking crisis, where the self-policing approach was widely blamed for the economic catastrophic and persisting downturn that followed. On 25 October, Downing Street announced former Tory Cabinet minister Lord Young had been re-appointed as an adviser to the prime minister on enterprise, indicating he 'will work on reducing the burden on business from health and safety regulations, working across departments on the implementation of his recommendations.'
