‘Red Tape’ is one
of everybody’s favourite bêtes noirs. It’s
something which prevents people doing whatever it is that they want to do and
think that they should be allowed to do; ties up resources in unnecessary
activity; and is generally a ‘bad thing’.
Businesses in
particular hate the stuff. Apparently it
stops them hiring people because they can’t simply sack them when they want to,
stops them from keeping their employees at work for however many hours they
need them to work, and forces them to abide by all sorts of rules and
regulations, such as health and safety and environmental protection, without
which they could get on with making their profits.
And that’s the
rub. Whilst it’s easy to agree with the
general (unnecessary regulation is a bad thing), it’s a lot harder to agree on
the specifics (which regulation is really unnecessary). Tuesday’s Western Mail contained an article
about economic activity in the Haven, and the headline was that experts and
businesses were complaining that the future of the area was being put under
threat by too much red tape.
It was a lengthy
article, quoting various people complaining about the extent to which their
activity is regulated; but it was remarkably short when it came down to
detailing which regulations were causing the concern and why. The closest that it came was in talking about
"the increasing burden of
environmental regulation, regulatory pressure and issues surrounding the
planning procedures for new developments”.
Now I don’t doubt
for a moment that relaxing controls on environmental pollution and doing away
with planning controls would make it easier for some organisations to make
money. It might even lead to more
material prosperity for a larger number of people. But at what cost?
There is always
scope for debate about whether particular rules and regulations are entirely
necessary or can be amended or tweaked with no detrimental impact. But, and not for the first time, I‘m left
with a feeling that an attack on red tape is really a backdoor request to be
allowed to do greater damage to the physical environment in pursuit of private
profit.
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