Coalition Lib Dems don't care about deregulation

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) have warned that new employment laws coming into force over the next four years will cost business an implausibly precise £22.9bn.

• Plans to give agency workers the same pay as permanent staff after just 12 weeks in a job will lead to an annual cost of £1.5bn, the BCC said. The UK regulations stem from an EU directive, but the Government has been accused of "gold plating" the law
• Giving staff the right to request time off work for training "will cost £175m a year from April 2011"
• Pensions reform – including automatically enrolling employees onto a workplace scheme from 2012 – "will result in a recurring annual cost of £4.5bn".

The BCC also warned against the constant "tinkering" to employment law. Three changes are being planned to parental leave in the coming few years, each with their own price tag for industry, the business group said.

(The civil servants tend not to get this, because regulating is their core job.)

The government's response to this was telling and is worth quoting.

The Government is taking dramatic steps to reduce the burdens that regulation places on our businesses, removing barriers to growth. We are removing or delaying unnecessary measures wherever possible and have introduced the revolutionary one in, one out system that will cut the costs that businesses face in dealing with bureaucracy.

We are removing ... unnecessary measures wherever possible, they say. Wherever possible? When is it impossible to remove "unnecessary measures"? Could this be a reference to the EU elephant in the room? If so, any serious government would set out a list of measures it considers unnecessary but which it regretfully cannot remove. It would then go ahead and cancel the rest. It's not doing that, and we'll see why.

We are ... delaying unnecessary measures wherever possible, they say. This surely can only be a reference to the EU. Any mildly curiously journalist would have probed what this meant - but from The Telegraph's Louisa Peacock (Jobs Editor, no less) we get nothing.

The Department for Business spokesman goes on to say that they have introduced the revolutionary one in, one out system that will cut the costs that businesses face in dealing with bureaucracy.

As I have argued before, there is nothing revolutionary about this at all. Most recent governments have promised it. Note there's no promise that the one in will be less burdensome than the one out. Indeed, one out at a time is far from good enough when they have all these unnecessary regulations waiting to be annulled.

Could this be why the government hasn't had a bonfire of unnecessary measures? Because they want to abolish them one at a time, to get maximum political value? Never mind that, meanwhile, business has to keep observing these regulations that are unnecessary.

You might think a Business Minister would be onto this like a hawk. Ripping the burden of regulation should be a good way to make your name. But it does need a minister who truly thinks that there's an important goal here and is prepared to put in the work. (Truly not much at Secretary of State level. It's what junior ministers are for.)

LibDems like freedom headlines. They like the easy grand gesture. But Clegg notoriously passed most of the suggestions for a Freedom Bill over to the Home Office. Too much like hard work, you see. And Vince prefers tweaking George Osborne's nose in interviews over pursuing the serious business of being a minister and getting things done. So much more satisfying to the big ego.

We need a business minister who wants to make his name by delivering. And, Louisa, we need journalists who will ask questions rather than copy out releases. Maybe Louisa needs a spell in Cairo or Tehran to remind her what her job is.