UK Employment Minister, Chris Grayling has pledged to reduce the impact of red tape on small businesses, it emerged last week

Acknowledging that the United Kingdom is facing "challenging economic times", he observed that the crisis in the Eurozone is having a chilling effect on the UK economy.

"The main challenge we face continues to be that one of growth," the Employment Minister stated, continuing:

One of the most important lessons the economic events of the last few years has taught us is that growth has to be based upon innovation and enterprise. Without that we cannot build the wealth we need for the future."

To that end, he revealed, the government had set itself the challenge of reducing the burden of regulation rather than increasing it.

He explained that:

"For new regulations we have a one in, one out policy. And we are scrutinising existing regulations with the aim of reducing and simplifying as much as we possibly can. The Red Tape Challenge, which asks people to report bad regulation, has already looked at 400 regulations in retail and hospitality – over half of those will be simplified or scrapped all together."

Commenting on his own particular area of focus, health and safety, Mr Grayling stated:

"I think good health and safety is vital to good business. It is not something you can ignore. In a world where so much depends on brand and reputation, serious injuries and worse in the workplace can do huge damage to a company’s reputation. Britain has the best record in Europe on real health and safety. Something I don’t think our European partners always realise. It’s a record we should be proud of and should aim to retain."

However, he went on to add:

"But we also have one of the worst records in Europe for pointless health and safety red tape. That’s a record we should aim to lose as quickly as possible."

He then went on to discuss recently announced government plans to reduce the number of "trivial" legal cases:

"We’ve already implemented most of Lord Young’s recommendations that apply to business. Many more changes are going to be coming through in new legislation in the next session of Parliament so that we can put into practice the recommendations he made to us."

"But we are not stopping there. Later this month Professor Ragnar Löfstedt, who is head of risk management at Kings College London, is going to make a further set of recommendations to us aimed particularly at the regulatory regime as it affects business."

"What we want to do is to reduce the risk of trivial legal action, we want to create a more consistent system for businesses – so you aren’t told one thing in one town and another thing in another."

Other issues addressed by Mr Grayling during his speech at the trade association-centred event included forthcoming pension reforms. He suggested that:

"It is right and proper we should ensure that we do not have people entering retirement with no provision at all for their income after they have retired, dependent entirely upon the state and basically means tested pensions."

But added:

"At the same time we have recognised some of the pressures that change puts on small business and we have modified and developed the proposals so they are a more realistic package and a better balance between the need to get people to provide for their retirement and the need to reflect the pressures on small business."

He additionally addressed the government's plans for reducing unemployment, including via initiatives such as sector-based work academies, and the Work Programme for the long-term unemployed.

"The Work Programme offers a further great opportunity for small business. It is all about helping the long term unemployed into work...It’s still early days, but what we are finding is that more and more employers are turning to the Work Programme to recruit new staff."

He continued:

"The reality is recruitment is a grind, especially if you are a small business. You have to spend the money on advertising. Sometimes you get too many CVs, sometimes you get none at all. You’ve got the slog of sifting them, and hoping you’ve picked the right one. What the Work Programme does is offers small and medium size business that service for free."

"The providers will sift the potential candidates that they are working with, hundreds of people, potentially thousands, and pick out a small number who are potentially right for your business.They will deliver that small selection to you to choose from. And when you take someone on, Work Programme providers will want to work with you and the recruit, to make sure they can stay at work – so if there are problems there is someone at the end of the phone line with the expertise to come in and help sort those problems out. I think, for many small businesses that’s a much better way to recruit."