How would new butchers licensing requirements match up with Better Regulation principles?
Government policy is that proposals for new legislation must target the specific problem or issue and be proportionate to the risk. Exceptional reasons would be needed to justify gold plating the EU requirements. Gold plating is when legislation goes beyond the minimum necessary to comply with an EU requirement. New licensing requirements as in option 2 would continue to target those butchers for which licensing was originally introduced. The following points merit reflection: • The Pennington recommendation envisaged licensing as a ‘stopgap’ measure until businesses fully apply HACCP principles, which will be a requirement from 1 January 2006 • There is evidence that hygiene standards in butchers have improved as a result of the licensing initiative and there is a question as to whether enforcement resources would now be better directed towards raising standards in other businesses • The new EU hygiene regulations provide a substantially equivalent level of public health protection to
