A review set up to look at how the UK puts EU legislation into practice is calling for evidence of over-implementation.
The review is urging business and other sectors to come forward with instances where 'goldplating' - adding unnecessary burdens as EU measures enter UK law - may be creating excessive red tape.
Neil Davidson QC, the former Solicitor General for Scotland, was appointed by Chancellor Gordon Brown in November to lead an independent review to look not only at 'goldplating', but at the broader issue of over-implementation.
Supported by the Cabinet Office, the review aims to identify - and consider ways to simplify - any unnecessary burdens, and will report with recommendations to the
Government by the end of this year. It is looking at the whole process by which EU legislation is given effect in the UK, from transposition (writing EU legislation into national law) to enforcement.
It is asking for examples of:
* Goldplating: Where the implementation goes beyond the minimum necessary to comply with an EU directive by, for example, using wider legal terms than those in the directive.
* Double Banking: Where EU legislation covers the same ground as domestic legislation and the two regimes have not been fully streamlined.
* Regulatory Creep: Where regulatory burdens are added to through guidance or other non-statutory means.
Midland companies have regularly complained about such practices.
Mr Davidson said: "Around half of all new legislation that impacts on business derives from rules agreed by governments at the EU level - so it is important that the Government and society are confident that EU rules are written into the UK statute book as simply and effectively as possible.
"I am publishing a call for evidence to give everyone the chance to put forward exam-ples of EU implementation they think ought to be independently scrutinised and perhaps revisited by the Government.
"The purpose of my review is not to catalogue whether various sectors of society like or dislike certain rules agreed by governments at the EU level. It will focus on areas of over-implementation - where the UK has regulations that are stricter or more burdensome than required by EU law - and consider whether these could be simplified."
Cabinet Office Minister Jim Murphy said: "This Govern-ment is committed to an ambitious regulatory reform agenda in the UK and the EU.
"We have strengthened scrutiny of EU regulations, publishing best-practice guidance for policy-makers in the 2005 Budget. This review will ensure that the principles we set out are applied to the stock of laws originating from Europe that may not have been transposed."
"People have 12 weeks to get their examples in. The deadline is May 25."
