Climate change rules evade regulations cull

Companies hoping that new government proposals to cut levels of red tape will result in a scaling back of environmental rules are likely to be disappointed after officials confirmed climate change legislation would be exempt from the new system of regulatory budgets.

Earlier this year, the government announced plans to reduce the regulatory burden on British firms by up to a quarter through the introduction of a new system of regulatory budgets.

This require departments to introduce ways of reducing the cost to business of existing legislation when they attempt to bring in new regulations.

However, according to consultation documents released yesterday all regulation relating to climate change will not be covered by the budgets, allowing the government to continue its plans to develop a low carbon regulatory framework without the requirement to scale back other legislation.

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, said that it would be impractical for the government to apply regulatory budgets to climate change rules that tend to fall under the jurisdiction of multiple departments.

"Climate change is a special situation and if climate change rules were included it would raise complex issues over which department was directly responsible and which had to balance its regulatory budget," he explained. "It is best that climate change is managed outside of the system of regulatory budgets."

However, he added that the government remained committed to ensuring that carbon legislation remains as streamlined as possible. "All climate change regulations will still be managed under better regulation principles and will have to make economic sense," he said.