Cost of red tape soars
THE cost of doing business in Britain rose to £88.3bn this year, up £11bn on the year, after the government imposed 40 new regulations on firms, according to the British Chambers of Commerce led by director general David Frost.
According to the BCC’s annual Burdens Barometer, published yesterday, the most costly regulations include the European Light Duty Vehicle Emissions Standards, which has a recurring cost to business of £1.48bn and the Community Infrastructure Levy with a one-off cost to business of £457m.
The Barometer, which is compiled by the London and Manchester Business Schools, showed 40 additional regulations have been added since 2009. Even though 21 of those resulted in a recurring annual benefit for companies, the net result was still a new annual recurring cost to business of over £1bn.