Government will review energy laws in red tape reduction bid

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has written to interested parties listing the 334 regulations or groups of regulations which could be abolished after consultation later this year.

The regulations cover topics including radioactive substances, coal and gas and payments to redundant miners, according to a list published by the DECC.

The Government is allowing the public to scrutinise over 21,000 active regulations in what it is calling the Red Tape Challenge. It began in April this year and is considering different areas of the law in stages.

Once each area of the law has been considered, ministers will have three months to work out which regulations should be kept and why. "The default presumption will be that burdensome regulations will go," the Red Tape Challenge website said.

The project will "ensure that outdated or ineffective regulations are identified and removed or replaced with a more effective way of achieving their goals", the website said.

"There is no intention to reduce environmental protection or draw back from our climate change commitments. However, to support a sustainable green economy we have to make sure that our environmental, climate change and energy policies are being implemented in the most effective way possible," DECC Minister Charles Hendry said in his letter to interested parties (2-page, 152KB PDF).

The Government has already begun this process through consulting on industry-led codes of conduct and providing more environmental data to the public, the letter said.

The energy theme will be live on the Red Tape Challenge website from 25 November 2011. The list does not include legislation relating to the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme or to feed-in tariffs.

Broader discussion of existing environmental regulation including air quality, energy efficiency labelling and environmental permits has been live on the website since April.