Waste, over regulation and how to get our economy going.

Since coming to power the Conservatives and Liberals have been talking tough about cuts and helping our economy. When the Tory led coalition came to power they talked about helping manufacturing and about cutting regulation. We have had leftist propaganda stating how awful these cuts are, but the reality is somewhat different.

There haven't been any real cuts. Basically the state spends 43 per cent of our annual output compared with 37 per cent when Labour came to power in 1997.

One of the problems we have within government (and this probably goes for all governments around the world), is that it is very easy to waste money. This is because it is not their money, secondly governments are large bureaucratic organisations and thirdly they are run by people who do not really understand what they are doing, and have done very little if anything outside of politics.

You only have to look at the previous government to see how not to run a country. Massive waste on a scale that has hardly ever been seen before; over £20 billion wasted on a computer system for the NHS, billions more sacrificed by Gordon Brown's decision to sell off most of our gold reserves. I could go on and on.

What the previous government also did was create many departments and QUANGO's which have also wasted billions of our taxes. One example is the Dept for Business and Skills, which 36 MPs have called to be abolished, this would save £1 billion a year.

On top of this Gordon Brown created such a complicated tax system that the current edition of Tolley's accountant's tax guide runs to 14,500 pages - twice as big as when Gordon Brown became Chancellor in 1997.

This department headed by Vince Cable has failed to make Britain a better place to do business. Companies continue to complain about regulation in every aspect of their business, this of course heaps massive costs on their ability to compete.

The Free Enterprise Group has claimed that excessive regulation costs Britain's economy £112 billion every year. Let me repeat that £112 billion!! And that is only the start.

In 2008 all parties voted through the 'Climate Change act', this one law is going to cost tax payers £18.3 billion every year from now until 2050. Our contribution to the EU this year will be nearly £20 billion, not including what we will contribute via the IMF to help bail out the eurozone economies. The government has also committed themselves to increasing our overseas aid budget to 0.7 per cent of our GDP, even though they admit themselves that there is massive problems with fraud and waste.

The Business department recently hosted a 'manufacturing summit' to discuss how 'the government continues to put manufacturing at the heart of its growth programme'. This is the same government who handed over a multi billion pound contract to build trains for the Thameslink rail programme to Seimens of Germany instead of a British based company - Bombardier, which would have protected thousands of jobs. This same government handed a £485 million contract to build small sea going tankers for the Ministry of defence to a South Korean company, when there are plenty of British companies who need the work. This same government which talks about helping British manufacturing handed the multi million pound contract to print tickets for the Olympics to an American company, when there are plenty of British companies which need the work.

This government and the last government created a regulatory regime which has given us no advantage over most of Europe. National insurance has been increased, which in essence is a tax on jobs.

The only way our economy can grow is by de-regulation and encouraging private enterprise. I recently looked into starting up my own business - a fruit and veg shop. I looked at the cost of renting a small shop on my local high street, with rent and rates it would have cost me £78,000 a year. That figure did not include; the produce, bills, insurance or any sort of wage. Then if I did happen to take a risk and start up a business and then I needed to expand and take on an employee, the cost and risk of doing this would be insurmountable. Is it any wonder that our economy is struggling?

Currently the Department for Business, innovation and skills is running a 'Red Tape Challenge', the idea of this you would have thought was a to get rid of red tape and help growth, but instead of this it is asking for 'a debate, a discussion of the ways in which the aims of existing regulation can be fulfilled in the least burdensome way possible'. Instead of saving money, it has been reported that work on regulation in the last two years has actually cost £18 million.

Governments, as I have said are very good at wasting money, but unfortunately for us it is not their money it is ours. What I haven't looked at is regional assemblies and the massive amount of; cost, added bureaucracy and regulation that comes with them. We have the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies, and the cost of running these talking shops runs into billions, then we have district, local, town and parish councils - more bureaucracy. Then of course the biggest and most outrages waste of money of them all - THE EUROPEAN UNION!

I just cannot see that there is any justification for all these departments and talking shops. We have a country overwhelmed in regulation and officialdom. Something needs to be done but unfortunately I cannot see that the government has got the balls and morals to do something about this hideous waste of our money.