The following has been supplied by the TUC:
Government claims that slashing red tape will save businesses millions have been challenged by trade unions and health and safety campaigners. Business and enterprise minister Mark Prisk claimed this week the "one-in, one-out" regulations rule and the government's Red Tape Challenge will save businesses more than £4 million in the first half of this year. Publishing his department's third statement on new regulation, Mr Prisk said: 'The one-in, one-out process is one of the best tools we have to cut the costs and burden of regulation on our businesses. The system is starting to deliver results, capping the costs to business and then driving them down.' But Hilda Palmer of the Hazards Campaign told the Morning Star newspaper the government was living 'in a fairytale world of myth, lies and apocryphal tales aimed at making us believe that workers' protection caused the economic crisis.' In the real world, she told the paper, rules preventing harm to employees or members of the public, which costs the taxpayer £20-40 billion per year, would be seen as cost effective. Preventing through proper regulation and enforcement just two of the 12,000 plus occupational cancers in the UK each year would save significantly more than the minister's claimed £4 million from deregulation. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: 'Of course no-one supports unnecessary or overly bureaucratic regulation but what looks like red tape to a business lobbyist may well look like vital consumer, environmental or employment protection to everyone else.'
