Red tape cut for thousands of growing businesses

By James Bayley

Published: 04 October, 2022

On Sunday, October 2, prime minister Liz Truss announced that red tape would be cut for thousands of growing businesses.

The plans were made after much lobbying from the hospitality industry to reduce the burden of red tape on businesses.

Previously, small businesses were presumed to be exempt from specific regulations. However, many medium-sized companies, those with between 50 and 249 employees, still reported spending over 22 staff days per month on average dealing with regulation, according to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

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As a result, the prime minister has announced plans to widen these exemptions to businesses with fewer than 500 employees for future and reviewed regulations, meaning an additional 40,000 businesses will be freed from future bureaucracy and the accompanying paperwork that is expensive and burdensome for all but the largest firms.

The exemption has been effective from Monday, October 3, to all new regulations under development and those under current and future review, including retained EU laws.

In response to the government’s announcement UKHospitality CEO Kate Nicholls said: “We are delighted the government has listened to our calls to cut the burden of red tape on businesses. The prime minister’s plans to exempt medium-sized and small companies from reporting requirements and future and reviewed legislation will significantly boost thousands of operators in our sector.

“By removing the burden of time-consuming and expensive paperwork, businesses can concentrate their efforts on investment and growth instead. Of course, larger businesses are also affected by regulation and legislation, and we urge the Government to minimise the burden for these businesses to turbocharge growth. Applying the move retrospectively would also boost growth by reducing some of the existing strain on operators.”

In addition, the government has said it will look at plans to consult on potentially extending the threshold to businesses with 1,000 employees once the impact of the current extension is known.

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