Who are the government’s regulation busters?

Each time politicians fight regulation, regulation normally wins. So far it seems like this coalition government is no different. John Redwood has been busy tabling parliamentary questions asking each department how many regulations have been introduced, and how many repealed. Rather than “one in, one out” in turns out that two regulations have been introduced for every one revoked. Eric Pickles emerges as the star, having revoked twice as many as he introduced. But the rest? Here’s the league table:

I don’t think that the “guilty” ministers have been lax. It’s just that the system is out of control. Three years ago, John Hutton renamed his department “Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform” and did his level best to cut regulation – without success. So the surge in regulation is not to do with a lack of willpower, it’s to do with a structural problem. The government machine is spewing this out, and no one seems to know how to stop it.