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Ewan Sutherland

In his campaign to lead the Conservative Party two decades on and several leaders later, James Cleverly has proposed "one in, two out" approach to regulations. He claims this will free entrepreneurs to create economic growth and jobs. Back in 2011, in the early days of the Cameron Government, a 'principle' for regulation was set out of "one in, one out" (OIOO). Which in 2013, was raised to "one-in, two-out" (OITO), part of a better regulation framework. The first catch is that governments long ago adopted the practice on impact assessments, to ensure that regulations were the best available policy option. Consequently, their removal is likely to have adverse policy effects (e.g., climate change, health, and safety). It makes little sense to conduct an impact assessment of the introduction of regulations, but not of their potential removal. The second catch is that regulations are not quantitatively equal, they may be bigger or smaller, and their "burden" on business or their benefits for citizens may be greater or smaller. An obvious question is why 1:1 or 2:1, not 3:1 or 4:1? There is no obvious explanation, political or economic, for one ratio rather than another. His political rivals may simply match his 2 and raise him one or two, calling for three, four or, even all regulations to be scrapped. While his proposal may reduce the number of regulations, it may not reduce the "burden" on business and it is highly unlikely to improve the achievement of public policy goals. It may sound good, but it is not clever policy making. https://lnkd.in/esQdDv4J

John Beaumont

6mo

Balanced and thoughtful observations of seemingly nonsense simplicity in policy-making.

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