To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what his most recent estimate is of the cost of regulation to UK industry. (176965)

In 2005 Government undertook an exercise to measure, for the first time in the UK, the administrative burdens of regulations on businesses and the third sector. The administrative burden as of May 2005 was £13.4 billion. More information can be found at:

http://bre.berr.gov.uk/regulation/reform/simplifying/plans.asp

Information on the total costs of regulations (not just administrative burdens) to UK industry is not currently held centrally and there is no established methodology for measuring these on a consistent basis.