Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will place in the House of Commons Library the latest version of the document previously produced by her Department that included the bar chart entitled Current assessment of business burdens from Defra/EU regulations, showing estimates of red tape burdens including identifying (a) percentages of EU costs and (b) direct costs to business per annum; what the title of that document is; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of using (i) this document and (ii) parallel audits undertaken across Whitehall in order to support Government deregulation policies.

The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. Defra conducts analysis of how regulations impact business to prevent unjustifiable regulatory burden. Defra is currently analysing its retained EU law (REUL) stock and determining what should be preserved as part of domestic law, as well as REUL that should be repealed, or amended. Defra will not ignore areas where deregulation is difficult. We will still be looking at opportunities to reform and streamline regulatory requirements, while reducing unnecessary burdens where we can. The REUL Bill provides a unique opportunity to reform policies that could not be amended while a member of the EU.

The title of the document to which the Rt Hon Member refers is potentially 'The Costs and Benefits of Defra's Regulatory Stock: Emerging Findings From Defra's Regulation Assessment' which is available on gov.uk. The data for this wider analysis of Defra regulations is no longer collated.