Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what progress he has made in reducing red tape for British business during his Department's renegotiation of the UK relationship with the EU.

The Government is fighting hard to fix the aspects of our EU membership that cause so much frustration in Britain – so we get a better deal for our country and secure our future. That includes cutting red tape to make Europe more competitive, so we create jobs and make British families more financially secure. We have made progress; legislative proposals under the new Commission fell by 80 percent in 2015, and more regulations were repealed in 2015 than in the whole of the previous Commission. But the burden from existing regulation is still too high and so we are working to secure a target to cut the total burden on business.