‘We’ve waited too long to cut EU red tape!’ Penny Mordaunt’s Brexit blueprint for Britain – Express

The right kinds of pro-competition rules set standards so contracts can be enforced, staff aren't exploited, our environment is preserved and food is safe to eat. They stop monopolies and cartels, and create jobs, wealth and economic growth by putting customers first, rather than politicians, bureaucrats or company bosses.

The Conservative Party is the party of enterprise. It was this party that unleashed the enterprise revolution in the 1980s. But most business leaders will tell you they are being held back by dense thickets of red tape and quangos that go well beyond those pro-competition rules and standards, and which slow businesses and wealth-creators down by focusing them on form filling instead of customers, making them less nimble, creative and efficient as a result.

So cutting the size and weight of these regulatory millstones around the neck of our economy is vital. But it isnt easy because every system in Whitehall and Westminster is set up to produce new rules. Its how politicians, civil servants and regulators forge their careers, and its why reducing red tape never comes naturally.

Recent history teaches some bitter lessons. We cut red tape successfully between 2010 and 2015 with aone-in-one-out'system that worked okay and later becameone-in-two-out, even though it couldnt apply to all the EU rules that came from Brussels. But then we abandoned it and surprise things went into reverse: in 2018 we tried to cut red tape costs by 9bn but they rose by 8bn instead.

And even though Brexit is now legally done, theres been no bonfire of all that EU red tape so far.

The optimist in me says that the opportunities for post-Brexit Britain to cut red tape costs ought to be immense, because no-one has dealt with 40 years of EU rules and regulations that have piled up on our books.

Scraping all those barnacles off our economys hull ought to be a massive and economically-vital Brexit dividend that will make our exporters and wealth-creators much, much more competitive than before. But, six years after the Brexit referendum, the realist in me says it wont happen automatically.

We will have to grab Government by the scruff of its neck to make the changes we need.

So thats what well do. My Government will reintroduce the one-in-one-out system to begin with, because its the only thing thats proven to work. And why shouldnt we aim even higher in future, by going back to one-in-two-out after that too, like we did before?

Either way, no Minister or regulator will be able to introduce new rules or regulations until theyve found a barrowload of red tape cost to get rid of first.

For example, we can rebuild our natural ecosystems faster and more effectively. Well achieve this by repealing EU rules which force water companies to solve water quality problems by building expensive, high-carbon water treatment plants, when striking deals with local farmers to reduce pollution risks or slow water runoff upstream could be both a greener and far more economically efficient and productive solution instead.

And we should extend the hugely-successful Open Banking project, which has freed up High Street banking and created gale-force winds of competition from new high-tech online banking challenger firms, which have used the extra freedoms to give customers more choices of ultra-modern, cheap and convenient banking apps than anyone would have dreamed of a few years ago.

The next steps should be to extend the same rule-changes to help customers in other areas of finance like pensions and mortgages, and then move on to lots of other parts of our economy too.

Then we should launch a project with British businesses to make our customs processes the easiest, quickest, cheapest, simplest and most digital in the world, reducing frictions and improving productivity for all British exporters and importers too.

If Britain is the easiest, simplest and most convenient country in the world to trade with, it will make us a natural hub for many global industries.

Put alongside our existing strong reputation for reliable business conditions, with easily-enforced contracts, a widely-used legal system, global product standards and the English language, it will make Global Britain easier and quicker to build.

These are just three examples, but there are many more as was set out in the recent Taskforce on Innovation Growth & Regulatory Reform.

Its time to stop talking aboutBrexit dividendsand get on with delivering them instead.

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'We've waited too long to cut EU red tape!' Penny Mordaunt's Brexit blueprint for Britain - Express