Sajjad Karim, rapporteur. - Mr President, may I start by thanking all of my colleagues on my committee, as well as the shadow rapporteurs, for once again working so constructively with me to deliver what I believe is a very good package.

This is now my third report on the topic of better lawmaking for this House. We have come a long way towards reforming the EU in this area. When we adopted my first report, in June 2011, we called for renewed commitment to smart regulations from all sides, sectorial plans for reducing administrative burdens, assessment of competitiveness in impact assessments, and exemptions for Europe’s smallest businesses from regulation where not necessary.

Each of these has been delivered, as part of a strong agenda towards reducing red tape at EU level. How has this been achieved? It is through commitment on the part of this Parliament, leadership from the Heads of State and Government in Council and through changing attitudes in the Commission towards a leaner, more effective Europe, based on a competitive regulatory environment promoting jobs and growth.

But we still have much further to go. Only recently, one of our EU leaders spoke of the need for a simplification shock to reduce the burden of administrative red tape and bureaucratic machinery on business, and to free enterprise to create the jobs we need. We must heed these words for, on this occasion, President Hollande actually suggested the correct medicine.

I am pleased to present my report to Parliament. It spells out how we can achieve such a simplification shock at European level. Initiatives such as ‘Think Small First’ and the Top 10 most burdensome pieces of legislation should move beyond mere rhetorical flourishes and become concrete, established programmes within the Commission, delivering proportionate regulation that fits with our small businesses, which make up 90% of all businesses in the Union.

The REFIT initiative should be implemented without delay, while an annual report on the net costs to business should be established to ensure that the better lawmaking agenda can be monitored effectively. We must be bolder still in our efforts to establish a competitive business environment. I strongly urge the Commission to consider how to implement a burden-offsetting policy to ensure we can keep the costs of regulation down for our businesses.

My recommendations do not, however, fall solely upon the Commission. We in Parliament and our co-legislators in Council do not yet stick strongly enough to the principles of better lawmaking. We are too quick to ignore inconvenient impact assessments which point out the costs of action or even, in many cases, fail to assess the impacts at all. This is not good enough. We cannot regulate in ignorance of the costs of our actions, particularly at a time when businesses are hard pressed and the recovery from the crisis is fragile in many Member States.

In Parliament we must make better use of our impact assessment unit, particularly in the preparatory stage of the work of our committee and in our work that follows. When legislative files come to our committees, we must seriously examine these accompanying documents to ensure that we legislate on the basis of evidence. The Council must also take on this responsibility, in order that both institutions know the impact of their amendments. Such developments are part and parcel of the better lawmaking agreement concluded between the institutions. However, this agreement is perhaps showing its age. Our work in the new Parliament should perhaps begin with a new approach in this area and I call on our partner institutions to begin discussions on this.

Finally, this report is also concerned with the engagement with national parliaments. In this area, interaction remains unsatisfactory. In my opinion, there exists a disconnect between the incentives for parliaments to provide opinions and the effects of such a procedure.

(The speaker agreed to take a blue-card question under Rule 149(8))