Putting a stop to new business regulation and simplifying existing rules would help boost job creation, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has claimed.
A moratorium on new rules that govern businesses could help to save and to generate more than 300,000 jobs, the FSB said.
According to a survey of FSB members, almost a third of businesses (27 per cent) that wanted to expand were too worried about complicated regulations to do so.
Of businesses planning to down-size or close, 50 per cent said their decision was strongly influenced by the regulatory burdens they faced.
Based on these statistics, the FSB predicted that removing regulatory obstacles could create more than 258,000 new jobs and save more than 55,500 from being lost.
As a result, the FSB has called for a stop to all new business regulation for the first 18 months after economic recovery and a simplification of the current laws, particularly those that relate to maternity and paternity law, discrimination law, and health and safety legislation.
John Wright, the FSB’s national chairman, said: “We cannot and must not underestimate the burden that unnecessary regulation puts on small businesses. Around half of all firms planning to close or down-size were influenced in that decision by the heavy impact of regulation.”
But Mr Wright added: “However, we know that small firms want to employ more staff, and the government should be making it easier for them to do so, especially as we pull ourselves out of recession and into recovery.
“The FSB is urging the government to give the UK’s regulatory environment a strategic overhaul, to provide it with what will amount to a second economic stimulus, to boost growth and employment.”
