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Forum - So, the government wants a list of laws to repeal…
So, the government wants a list of laws to repeal…
Fri, 04/06/2010 - 08:04 — AeC
The loftily titled Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill looks like being one of the most interesting elements of the new government's plans for the next few years. If it was up to you, which (if any) business-related laws would they send for shredding?
As a starter for ten, I'll suggest that elements of the Sunday Trading Act could do with a good looking at.
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Where to start?
When we opened our new Bristol office 10 years ago, there were three staff but we had to have 8 fire extinguishers because there were four (small) floors. The fire escape was on the top floor, onto a roof walkway, but this exit did not meet the regulatory specification (and by law we did not have to have such a fire escape anyway) so the fire dept advised us that we were legally prohibited from having a sign saying Fire Exit. Burning to death up there was legal, but the sign was not! Clearly, in so many cases, the rules have become the objective. This inflexible approach is bonkers. You should have to take reasonable precautions, with several examples to show what this means, and some rigid elements, and stiff penalties for people who ignore the guidelines.
Health & Safety has become a national obsession. Equipment in factories and public places now has so many warnings on it that you ignore them all and then potentially suffer the most serious/common accident that having just one or two signs would prevent. If you don't have all the signs, the insurer can probably avoid paying out... which is another huge factor that a legisaltive review needs to look at. Insurance and liability is the biggest driver behind all this counter-productive legislation and slavish rule-following.
But it's not just the UK. In Brittany every beach we visited had Danger signs because of the currents. It turned out that only one of them was a killer, a place where several people had drowned. I only found that out after we'd spent a whole week on that particular beach with three young children. Similarly, in Northern Australia we found Warning signs about crocodiles everywhere ... they used the same sign for places where croc attacks had happened and places where a croc had not been seen there for 30 years ... the objective has become 'cover the backside of the local council' whereas it used to be 'save lives'.
I could go on and on... apparently I'm not even allowed to discuss the idea of investing in my company with someone, as that comes under wide-ranging securities legislation passed by Brussels. I can only legally have the discussion in the presence of a licensed stockbroker or suchlike, in order to protect innocent investors (and, er, boost the fees of the professional advisers who are behind so much of this better-safe-than-sorry legislation). Of course, no one even knows that this legisaltion exists, but if an investor does get his fingers burnt the authorities can point to the legisaltion and feel exonerated. What a nonsense and what a vast waste of time and money all these things are.
For Pete's sake, let's deal with the real dangers and the real risks, and then just get on with living our lives!
Yes, we could all write a book on this one.
Every bit of legislation needs to start with a statement saying what the legislation is trying to achieve, and interpretion of the rules should then match these objectives. I'll give you an example to show why this is so important.
When my company opened an office down in Bristol, we kicked it off with a staff of just three. But we took a ten year lease of a four-floor building that could accomodate our expected growth.
To comply with fire regulations, we had to have eight fire extinguishers for those three people. Worse still, the fire regulations meant that we were prohibited from putting up a sign to show where the emergency fire exit was on the top floor, because this perfectly usable fire exit did not meet the full specification for a fire exit today.
Clearly, the rules had BECOME the objective. Or, put another way, the objective of the fire department official who advised us was to comply with the rules to the letter, rather than saving lives (it was fine and legal for our employees to burn to death on the upper floors without realising that there was a perfectly good fire escape, but it was illegal to have a sign...).
Surely, the expert offical, with his years of experience, should have been trusted to interpret the rules in terms of THE OBJECTIVES of the legislation, and to then decide what was reasonable and sensible in our situation. He should have had the power to give us a document that set out what was required in our case, so we could then comply with a sensible level of protection.
Too often, legislation just becomes a process of covering someone's backside. Would the fire official ever get in trouble for insisting on eight fire extinguishers (not cheap) when only four were needed? No. No one ever gets in trouble for wasting our time and money on spurious health and safety precautions.
In 2010 we now have factory machinery in the UK that is plastered with so many safety notices that you end up reading none of them. There is no longer any distinction between a real risk (three people lost a finger in this machine last year) and a non-risk (no one has been electrocuted by this type of machine in the UK since records began, but it is possible to be electrocuted).
I took my family on holiday in Brittany and found that every single beach we visited had a Danger sign because of the currents. It was only at the very end that we discovered that our favourite beach, where we spent the most time, was the one and only beach where several people had actually drowned.
So, to come back to my first point, if the objective is to prevent people from drowning, one can work out that slavishly "following the rules" and having the same sign on every single beach (regardless of the degree of risk) is actually counterproductive. No wonder so many people drowned on the one really dangerous beach ... maybe we almost did that year too.
OK...here we go (deep breath)...
Certain aspects of the Companies Act and Tax regulations.For example, Companies House and HMRC require many similar pieces of information, so why aren't they one organisation that actually talks to each other? You have to complete a Company Return (Co House), then various returns to HMRC, and all it is is duplication, and redtape that the business ends up paying for in terms of effort (usually Director's time) and money (accountant's bills). I suspect that to do this, the government would need to repeal, at least in part, these and other Bills.
The Tax regulations/laws have grown immensely under Labour - get rid of the lot of them and simplify the whole tax system - it is only as complicated as we choose to make it! How about repealing all tax laws (both for the individual and for companies) and making it so that there is a simple list of tax allowances, and thereafter, if it is income earned or received (importantly) in the UK, it is taxable?
While they're at it, they can sort out the VAT threshold too (the Finance Bill) - either put the threshold up to something like £250k turnover or make all businesses pay it, just don't stay with this wishy-washy threshold that we have now, which just penalises businesses just when they're at a critical size.
Europe - maybe I won't open that can of worms just yet eh?
Then how about MPs and their ability to escape the laws of the land just because they are speaking in the House of Commons? Come on guys, this is the 21st century, not the 12th! If you overstep the mark, no matter where you are, and you want it to be on public record (which the Commons is), then stand and be counted with the evidence that supports your words.
The Rights Bills (various) - how about the rights of good, honest, hard-working, polite, respectable, tolerant people? I'll say no more on that one (he says, reaching for his soap box).
How's that for starters?
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