Research by leading legal information provider Sweet & Maxwell found that 1,466 new laws were introduced over the last year, compared with the 1,355 introduced in 2011.
The increase means that almost 6 new laws were introduced every working day in 2012.

Red tape

Daniel Greenberg, author of Sweet & Maxwell published ‘Laying Down the Law’ commented: ‘This is a worrying indicator that part of the Government’s aim to reduce red tape for businesses by lowering the number of new laws has taken a temporary hit and may be running into difficulties.
‘Although the ultimate aim of a lot of these reforms is to lighten the regulatory load for businesses, there is still a huge amount of change for them to digest at a time when they are battling a tough economic climate.’

Double savings

However, the Government recently announced plans to build on its ‘one-in, one-out’ policy on new regulations with a ‘one-in, two-out’ rule, meaning that any costs involved with conforming to new regulations should be matched by double savings elsewhere.