Industry pins hopes on bureaucracy blitz

The Government's promise in last week's Queen's Speech to blitz bureaucracy is nothing new. Successive administrations have pledged to reduce regulations.

What is new is that the Government has finally admitted that the hospitality industry has been "disproportionately" affected by the burden of increasing legislation - possibly more than any other industry.

It has emerged that the Government's Better Regulation Task Force has set up a sub-group devoted solely to cutting bureaucracy in the hotel, restaurant and catering sectors.

This should raise a cheer from those at the rough end of the stream of new rules, experiencing ever more complicated missives on everything from working hours to genetically modified food.

So far, the Better Regulation Task Force, set up two years ago, seems to have done little to help. Where was its chairman, Lord Haskins, when hotel and restaurant managers were burning the midnight oil trying to make sense of the Working Time Directive?

The pledge in the Queen's Speech amounts to Lord Haskins grilling the eight most senior Cabinet ministers on their regulatory performance and reporting back by Christmas.

Martin Couchman, deputy chief executive of the British Hospitality Association, hopes this will change the Government's approach to bureaucracy.

"They are going to use Lord Haskins to put a lot of pressure on senior ministers and go back to the PM and say this particular minister is not doing his job and we need to get something done. There are obviously parts of Whitehall that will think: ‘Right, we will have to get on with improving these regulations'."

For Couchman, the problem with most red tape, and particularly the Working Time Directive, is that ministers do not allow enough time for consultation, so you tend to get "bad law".

The initiative will not have been in vain if it means ministers think twice before imposing large chunks of incomprehensible legislation on the industry.

But in the grand scheme of things, the changes still seem to amount to no more than a few ministerial tweaks behind much public relations bluster.

The hotel and restaurant group was set up, says Teresa Graham, who heads it, because the industry "creates a huge number of jobs" and seems to be the target of every regulation.

The Government appears to have realised that these sectors create wealth and ministers should be less heavy-handed with them.

Graham displays a good understanding of the industry's grievances. "It's not the policy that's at issue, it's the way it's introduced. It's the lack of consultation, it's the poor guidance and the timing of the guidance. The guidance is too late - that's what really irritates them."

This will come as good news to hoteliers like Simon Williams, operations director for the Town House Company, which has three hotels in Edinburgh.

"The Working Time Directive was a nightmarish thing to fathom out," he says, "and there is the fear of falling foul of the law if you have not interpreted it correctly."

Partner consultations

David Coats, head of economic and social affairs at the TUC, says it is not the rules themselves that are at fault but the failure to get unions and industry bodies round a table together before implementing new regulations. "If there had been effective social partner consultations before this started, we would have had effective regulations."

That's all very well, but isn't it closing the stable door after the horse has bolted? Not so, says Graham. "The parental leave changes haven't come in yet, the part-time directive is emerging, the working family tax credit has just hit them."

Couchman hopes the study will call for a U-turn on some regulations, not just a simplification. These include GM food labelling and restrictions on taking children into pubs. He also hopes the group will recommend that responsibility for licensing is transferred from magistrates to local authorities and that licences are made portable.

Although the latest red tape initiative looks similar to previous efforts, the hospitality sector appears finally to be winning friends in high places.