Red tape holding us back?

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‘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.

Squaring circles

Tweet Today's announcement of a new planning policy for Wales, with new building regulations taking us towards zero-carbon buildings is unquestionably the right thing to do. It's a good example of how the Assembly Government can make positive changes to tackle one of the major issues facing the whole world.

It's not without its downside though, and it highlights the difficulties involved in making the right judgements, given conflicting policy objectives. In this case, the downside is that it is hard to reconcile the need for such tighter building regulations with the serious problems of providing adequate affordable housing - and affordable housing is one of the most frequent issues raised with me by people in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.

The simplistic response is that, by reducing energy costs in particular, zero-carbon housing will be cheaper (and thus more affordable) over its entire lifetime. True, but it doesn't help the young people who can't afford the increased capital cost of purchase now.

There is a danger that, faced with this obstacle, the Assembly Government might be lobbied (and the beginnings of that were apparent in the story) to relax the rules or delay implementing parts of them. I hope that they'll resist such calls – as I said at the outset, I'm entirely convinced that bringing in these rules is the right thing to do. Slackening them to help a faltering building sector merely puts off the problems for another day.

That leaves a problem though; and the problem cannot simply be ignored. How do we make sure that homes which will be more expensive to build will be affordable for those who are struggling at current price levels? And not only that, but how do we find a way of doing that when government budgets are going to be much tighter, with less money to spare for grants and incentives than has been available in the past?

Lenders certainly need to look at their lending criteria, and change them for truly zero-carbon houses, since people paying less for their energy should be able to afford to pay more for their mortgages. It's taking a more holistic approach to personal finances, and taking account of the lower running costs.

But I think that government will need to do more, particularly in areas such as this where outside purchasers place a higher upward pressure on house prices anyway. One major change which I'm convinced would help in this sort of area would be to require planning consent for a change of use in the case of second homes.