Cable pledges to cut red tape
Business secretary Vince Cable is to outline plans today on how the Government will cut red tape for small businesses, including no new domestic laws for three years.
Speaking to the Federation of Small Businesses annual conference in Liverpool, Cable will propose a three-year moratorium on all new domestic rules for firms with fewer than 10 staff.
Cable will also propose that firms with fewer than 250 staff are to be exempt from rules that allow employees to request days off for training courses.
He will announce that from April, almost 22,000 regulations will be "audited" starting with those in retail and manufacturing.
Cable said in a media briefing: "We will then ask business to look through all the regulations in their sector and tell us how we can improve the system. Each Government department will then take those comments away and report back on the action they will take to address the issues raised.
"We are giving those affected an opportunity to tell us which rules are badly designed, or straightforwardly a bad idea.
"The onus of proof will then fall on Whitehall to prove why the regulation needs to stay, or if there is another way of achieving the same outcome."
Simple tax system
The announcement by Cable comes at a time when new research has found that small businesses want the Government to deliver a more simple and predictable tax system.
According to a new survey by The City UK, a group which promotes financial services, just under half (46%) of small businesses are calling for "stable, consistent, predictable and transparent" tax policy, ahead of the budget next week.
Meanwhile, 37% called for cuts in corporation tax, while 11% think new regulation should only be permitted if it replaces existing legislation.
