HEBRG engages with the wider better regulation agenda across public and private sectors. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has launched the Red Tape Challenge website inviting individuals to tell BIS which regulations are working and which are not; what should be scrapped, or what should be saved or merged, and what should be simplified. The priority will be to focus on regulations that place the biggest burdens on businesses and society.

The Red Tape Challenge will run until April 2013. Every few weeks BIS will publish regulations relating to a specific sector – and throughout the process will publish general regulations that relate to all sectors, such as those on equality or health and safety. Comments from the public will be collated by government officials and ministers will then have three months to decide which regulations they will get rid of. Challenged by an independent reviewer, regulations that cannot be justified will go.

The Government is not considering or consulting on regulations that are the responsibility of the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, it will work with the devolved administrations and promote the benefits of the deregulation agenda, which also includes a new one-in, one-out rule for regulations and a strengthened role for the RPC.