Business: Regulation

John Penrose
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what estimate he has made of the annual cost to businesses of compliance with Government regulations introduced since 27 June 2007 in each (a) local authority area and (b) constituency.

Ian Lucas
In October 2009, the Government published the first Total Benefit/Cost ratio of New Regulations, for all legislation that received Royal Assent or was made by Parliament in the previous financial year, 2008-09. This is summarised in the following table:

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|Measure              |Quantified equivalent annual benefits (£ billion)|Quantified equivalent annual costs (£ billion)|Ratio of quantified benefits to costs (rounded)|
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|The Pensions Act 2008|9.95                                             |9.95                                          |1.00                                           |
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|Primary Legislation  |3.13                                             |1.11                                          |2.82                                           |
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|Secondary Legislation|11.20                                            |2.01                                          |5.57                                           |
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|Total                |24.28                                            |13.07                                         |1.85                                           |
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These data were calculated from information provided in published Impact Assessments (IAs) and includes all costs and benefits, not only those to business.

Nationwide data for earlier years could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

The Government do not collate data about regulation such as road closure orders that affect business on a purely local basis. It also does not hold data on national regulation at local authority or constituency level.