The ‘better regulation’ agenda
and nature conservation
Donal McCarthy, RSPB
“Reconciling Nature and Prosperity – A New Paradigm”
(WWF Living Planet Centre Woking, 2nd July 2014)

What is Regulatory Reform?
“I want us to be the first government
in modern history to leave office
having reduced the overall burden
of regulation, rather than increasing
it” – David Cameron (2011)
Regulations are “...placing ridiculous
costs on British business” – George
Osborne (2011)

Red Tape and the Regulatory 'Burden’
• Distinction between regulatory cost and
regulatory burden
• Administrative cost (red tape) vs. Policy
(compliance) cost

The ‘Better Regulation’ Framework
• A two-pronged attack on the
regulatory burden:
– Reducing the volume of existing
regulation e.g. red tape challenge.
– Reducing the flow of new
regulation e.g. using regulation “as
a last resort”, one-in, two-out rule.

Why does this matter for Nature?
• Properly enforced
regulations play an important
role in protecting nature.
• Tackling new and existing
threats to nature will, in
many cases, require new
regulatory solutions.
• Regulatory frameworks
underpin effective market-
based solutions e.g. PES

Red Tape Challenge – a “blitz on bureaucracy”
• A cross-government programme to review
the stock of existing regulation to see
“which ones can be scrapped”.
• Since 2011, the government has been
asking businesses and the public which
regulations should be abolished by inviting
comments on the RTC crowd-sourcing
website.
• “The default is that regulation should
go…together we can fight back – and free
up business and society from the burden
of excessive regulation.”

...reaction to the Red Tape Challenge
Source: Lodge, M., & Wegrich, K. (2014). Crowdsourcing and regulatory reviews: A new
way of challenging red tape in British government?. Regulation & Governance (early view).

Defra Better for Business: A
Strategic Reform Plan for Defra
Regulations
“To unlock growth we must get
out of people’s hair…fossilised
strata of rules and
bureaucracy…we have started to
untangle some of the rules that
can have a stranglehold on
business….a cashcow for
lawyers and consultants.”

Regulation “as a last resort”: using
alternatives to regulation
The Government’s Principles of Regulation
We see conventional regulation as a last resort. The Government will
regulate to achieve its policy objectives only:
• having demonstrated that satisfactory outcomes cannot be achieved by
alternative, self-regulatory, or non-regulatory approaches
• where analysis of the costs and benefits demonstrates that the regulatory
approach is superior by a clear margin to alternative, self-regulatory or
non-regulatory approaches

Do self-regulatory approaches work?
• Defra (2013): “...over-ambitious to assume that partnership
approaches will be as effective as regulations...”
• The RSPB has conducted a review of the available published
evidence on the performance of voluntary schemes:
– More than half of all schemes fail to achieve either the majority of
their targets or industry participation rates in excess of 50%. The
majority of schemes fail to set weak or unambitious targets
• Lack of sufficiently strong incentives to participate and/or
comply a key factor in explaining the results of this analysis.

One-in, Two-Out
“It is now much harder for ministers to regulate!”
– Michael Fallon, Minister for Business and Enterprise
• Under OIOI, any net costs to business associated with new
regulations have to be offset by the removal or simplification of
existing regulations, leading to equivalent net cost savings to
business.
• Under OITO, double the cost savings must be found! This is
providing a “very real brake” on the introduction of costly new
regulations (RPC, 2014)

Regulatory Impact Assessment
• Impact Assessments (IAs) are required for all new
regulations that impose costs on business and must
be independently assessed by the Regulatory Policy
Committee.
• All measures require a “fit for purpose” rating from the
RPC before receiving final clearance from the Cabinet
Office Reducing Regulation Committee. At the final
stage, this rating is “based solely on the accuracy of
the estimated cost to business.”
• 50% of IAs treat social and environmental impacts
with low rigour or not at all (Tinch et al. 2014).
• Focusing on the cost to business risks ignoring the
benefits of regulation and also ignores the fact that
future costs are frequently overestimated by those
keen to avoid regulation.

Related Policies – “... getting
regulators to put growth first”
• Deregulation Bill: introduces a ‘growth duty’ requiring
non-economic regulators to “have regard to” promoting
growth.
• Regulators’ Code: statutory code governing the way in
which regulators’ carry out their regulatory functions.
– Principle 1: Regulators should carry out their activities in a way
that supports those they regulate to comply and grow

Improving Inspection/Enforcement
• Business Focus on Enforcement
Initiative: “…gives trade associations
and representative business groups…the
dominant role in identifying enforcement
issues and driving reform to benefit their
industries.”
• Farming Regulation Task Force:
Earned Recognition and “rewarding good
practice with less frequent inspection”

EU and Better Regulation?
• UK Government: “Guiding Principles for EU
Legislation”
• Balance of Competences and EU Business
Task Force
• 10 Point Plan for EU Smart Regulation
• SMART Regulation and REFIT

What does the future hold?
• Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill (2014)
– Deregulation Target: future Governments required to publish
and transparently report against a target for cutting regulatory
burdens in each parliamentary term
– Regulatory Review: new regulations that impose a burden on
businesses will contain a statutory review provision
– Business Appeals Champion: an independent Small Business
Appeals Champion to be appointed to each non-economic
regulator to ensure complaints and appeals procedures are
business-friendly, providing an easy pathway to challenge
regulators’ decisions

Underlying Assumption(s)
• We have too much regulation.
• Regulation is bad for business and bad for the
economy (environmental regulation is a barrier
to growth).
• The costs of regulation outweigh the benefits.

Inconvenient Facts
• No evidence to suggest that the UK is
excessively burdened by regulation;
already among the top deregulated
countries in the world one of the best
places to do business.
• “... no inherent incompatibility between
preserving and enhancing natural
capital and economic growth”.
• Benefits of environmental regulations
outweigh the costs by more than 2:1
(almost 9:1 for biodiversity regulations)
• Business “perceptions” of regulatory
burden are unreliable.

How can we influence this agenda?
• Regulatory Reform Committee Inquiry
• Smarter Environmental Regulation Review
Phase 2
– The first phase of Defra’s SERR made recommendations
to improve environmental guidance and information
obligations. Phase 2 of the review will consider the scope
for reform of environmental legislation more broadly. It
will be supported by a high level external panel and will
report to Ministers in late 2014.

How to Respond?
• We need an evidence-based approach to regulatory reform. All policy
instruments have different strengths and weaknesses, many of which are
context-specific. We need a presumption in favour of what works!
• We need smart regulation, not deregulation!
– We support efforts to reform measures that impose unnecessary or
disproportionate regulatory costs and efforts to simplify regulatory
monitoring and enforcement.
– Smart regulation is about balancing the costs and benefit of regulation,
maximising the net benefits to business and society. Improving regulatory
quality, not simply reducing regulatory quantity.
• The OITO rule and the principle of using regulation “as a last resort” are
perverse and should be scrapped.
• Impact Assessments need to be properly scrutinized by independent
experts, based on the quality of the IA as a whole, rather than
solely based on the estimated costs to business.

Further Information:
• Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills (2013). Better Regulation Framework Manual.
• Regulatory Policy Committee. (2014). Improving the Evidence Base for Regulation: Regulatory Policy Committee Scrutiny
in 2013.
• Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. (2014). Defra Better for Business: A Strategic Reform Plan for
Defra’s Regulations.
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. (2013). Review of Partnership Approaches for Farming and the
Environment Policy Delivery;
• Gibbons, M., & Parker, D. (2013). New development: Recent changes to the UK's regulatory process. Public Money &
Management, 33(6), 453-457; Gibbons, M., & Parker, D. (2012). Impact assessments and better regulation: the role of the
UK's Regulatory Policy Committee. Public Money & Management, 32(4), 257-264.
• European Commission. (2012). Action Programme for Reducing Administrative Burdens in the EU Final Report.
Commission Staff Working Document SWD(2012) 423 final.
• European Commission. (2012). EU Regulatory Fitness. COM(2012) 746 final.
• https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/reducing-the-impact-of-regulation-on-business
• https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/regulatory-policy-committee
• https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/better-regulation-red-tape-challenge
• http://www.oecd.org/regreform/
• http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/index_en.htm

The RSPB is the country’s largest nature
conservation charity, inspiring everyone to
give nature a home.
The RSPB is part of BirdLife International,
a partnership of nature conservation
organisations working to give nature a
home around the world.