Submission: Reforming the framework for better regulation consultation

The Adam Smith Institute has responded to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)’s Reforming the framework for better regulation consultation. The submission was written by the ASI’s Head of Research, Matthew Lesh, and lawyer and consultant Robin Ellison.

The submission focuses on three key areas:

1. using the RegData approach to reduce regulation;

   • RegData is an innovative approach to measuring and reducing regulations developed by George Mason University’s Mercatus Centre. The method has been used in the United States, Canada and Australia, at both a national and provincial level.

   • RegData quantifies and categorises laws and regulations using machine learning and textual analysis. It analyses the restrictions of the text by counting the number of phrases such as ‘shall,’ ‘must,’ ‘should,’ and ‘prohibited’. This creates a count of “regulatory restrictiveness clauses”.

   • This method allows for a high quality measurement of regulations over time, between jurisdictions and across industries. It is superior to counting the number of regulations, the number of pages of regulations or the number of words in a regulation.

   • The RegData approach is particularly appropriate for tracking regulatory reduction efforts, by counting and setting targets to reduce regulatory restrictiveness clauses.

   • British Columbia used the method to reduce regulatory requirements by 41%.

2. better cataloging of the regulatory burden; and

   • The United Kingdom lacks a depository of all laws and regulations. We are all expected to follow the law, yet there does not exist a proper list of the legislation and regulations that citizens must abide by.

   • The lack of single regulatory source undermines the rule of law, severely burdens business and leads to the creation of more red tape.

   • Businesses spend thousands of hours attempting to find and interpret the law, employing costly external regulatory consultants and professional legal advice.

   • In addition to clearly cataloguing laws, regulations, and departmental guidance, there is a need to reduce and simplify the burdens on citizens to a point at which the legal responsibilities of citizens is comprehensible and clear.

   • There is a need to ensure the publication of rules in accessible website, data feed (XML, JSON) and PDF formats, amendments to be dated and time travelled, penalties for breach not to be applicable without proper publication and obligation to provide user friendly websites.

3. changing the culture of regulation by educating lawmakers.

   • Previous efforts to reduce regulation have failed because of an absence of training for lawmakers and regulators in how to produce good law and regulation and an inappropriate mindset, treating law and regulation as the first rather than a last solution.

   • In order to redress this issue, lawmakers and regulators could be better trained on the principles of regulation.