Groups representing businesses in the UK have called on the Government to retrospectively “de-gold plate” European employment law as part of efforts to cut business red tape.
The Institute of Directors (IoD) and the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) have suggested that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) should remove all the extra rules that have been unnecessarily added to EU legislation in recent years, such as giving temporary workers the same rights as permanent staff.
The so-called “gold plating” has occurred where UK civil servants have added unnecessary rules to existing EU legislation, as with temporary staff. The original Brussels law said that temporary workers should be given statutory pay and holidays but this was then enhanced to equal pay.
Business Minister Michael Fallon has pledged to put an end to the “completely unnecessary” gold plating that has been going on and said that the Government should stick to the rules as laid down by Brussels, not add to them.
However, the business groups would like to see the Government go even further and look at the “gold plated” laws that are already in place. The IoD is compiling a list of such regulations and the BCC has called for an urgent review.
In his New Year message, Director General of the BCC, John Longworth, said that, while the Government has demonstrated a commitment to reducing the regulatory burden on business, some Whitehall departments still believe that it is their right and duty to continue to introduce new burdens and costs.
Meanwhile, a BIS spokesman said that the Government’s “red tape challenge” is identifying and stripping out unnecessary requirements in existing regulation and cracking down on unnecessary burdens on business stemming from the EU.