Brown in 2005: "We Shouldn't Regulate At All"

Brown in 2005: "We Shouldn't Regulate At All"

Iain Dale 9:13 AM

A reader has kindly sent me an extract of a speech the Prime Minister gave to the CBI Conference in 2005...

The better, and in my opinion the correct, modern model of regulation – the risk based approach - is based on trust in the responsible company, the engaged employee and the educated consumer, leading government to focus its attention where it should: no inspection without justification, no form filling without justification, and no information requirements without justification, not just a light touch but a limited touch.

The new model of regulation can be applied not just to regulation of environment, health and safety and social standards but is being applied to other areas vital to the success of British business: to the regulation of financial services and indeed to the administration of tax. And more than that, we should not only apply the concept of risk to the enforcement of regulation, but also to the design and indeed to the decision as to whether to regulate at all.

In the new legislation we will publish before Christmas we will make this risk based approach a statutory duty of the regulators."

I don't need to rant on about the hypocrisy of him blathering on about effective regulation, do I? The banks took their cue from the then Chancellor and acted accordingly. It is Gordon Brown's regulatory system which is to blame for the current shambles, and he cannot be allowed to escape from that blindingly obvious fact.