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David Cameron pledges reduction in environmental and housing regulations


The Prime Minister today will pledge to tear up 80,000 pages of building guidelines and environmental protections in order to simplify "overlapping and confusing" house building standards, and to encourage more house building by cutting costs for businesses.

In a speech to small firms at the Federation of Small Businesses conference today, David Cameron will also announce plans to water down the current protections for hedgerows and rules about how businesses dispose of waste. The Government also plans to make it "vastly easier and cheaper" for businesses to meet environmental obligations. By March 2015 Defra will have cut 80,000 pages of environmental guidance saving businesses around £100 million per year, a Government statement said.

Building standards will also be reformed. David Cameron will announce plans to "help house builders by cutting down 100 overlapping and confusing standards applied to new homes to less than 10 - these reforms are estimated to save around £60 million per year for home builders, equivalent of £500 for every new home built," the statement said.

The Prime Minster will also claim: "We have trawled through thousands of pieces of regulation – from the serious to the ridiculous, and we will be scrapping or amending over 3,000 regulations – saving business well over £850m every single year. That's half a million pounds which will be saved for businesses every single day of the year".

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