When you read a Government report and the Minister is quoting your own words back to you, you to start to worry.

Many business organisations from every sector have told successive governments that there is too much red tape getting in the way of responsible businesses and here is Alan Johnson, Trade and Industry Secretary, saying the same thing.

The paper is entitled A Fair Deal for All and sets out the Governments plans for the future of what are essential Trading Standards services.

Now the great and wonderful thing about Trading Standards is that it is a completely impartial service that works on behalf of both businesses and consumers.

Trading Standards officers have enormous powers which they use with common sense on behalf of both parties. They are a local authority-based and funded service, but requests and guidelines inevitably come from all directions.

Quite apart from their responsibility to local communities their directives come from Government-based services, such as the Food Standard Agency. The other organisation that is involved in this new initiative is the Office of Fair Trading, again an impartial organisation which interprets and enforces laws affecting both businesses and customers.

In A Fair Deal for All the Government commits to looking "to further opportunities to simplify our legal framework" and "pro-actively pursue simplification of EU consumer legislation".

Just as importantly they promise to be as fair to business as they are to consumers and to do all this with the minimum regulation necessary to achieve their goals.

The paper actually talks about not imposing heavyhanded regulation on the entire business world when it is only a very few rogue traders who are causing real problems.

Now do you see why I am almost disbelieving? All the things business has been telling them for years and it's all here in 'their' words.

A major player in this new initiative will be Consumer Direct, a regionally delivered call centre for consumers to give well informed first line advice, but also to divert complex matters to the proper agency who should deal with them.

Working through Trading Standards and other local government services, consumers and businesses will be equally well served and life could be a lot less complicated and difficult for many businesses.

If the Government is really serious about cutting red tape and avoiding unnecessary, time consuming inspections of legitimate businesses, who have not broken the law, and intend to concentrate on rogue traders then all the lobbying of the past years will not have been in vain. The voice of business, especially small business, will have been heard and regarded as sensible on that matter. Who knows what may follow?

Red tape and regulation consigned to their proper place in all spheres of business life? A fair deal for all? Quick, pinch me, I think I'm dreaming.

* Diane Rayner is an independent adviser on small businesses in the West Midlands