The government has launched a consultation to cut three pieces of competition law it deems outdated in its latest attempt to scale back the amount of red tape faced by small businesses.
Competition minister Gerry Sutcliffe announced the Department of Trade & Industry's (DTI) intention to revoke The Dental Goods Order, The Restrictions on Agreements (Estate Agents) and The Imported Timber Order.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) advised that the former Order is now moot and the latter two are now superseded by other legislation.
The move comes as part of the government's campaign to reduce the level of red tape and just a week after the UK Presidency hosted the European Union's Better Regulation Conference, which aimed to generate top-level support among EU and member state government circles for European small business.
The European Commission followed the conference by announcing it will withdraw 68 unnecessary pieces of legislation.
It said the axed proposals do not reflect the better regulation principles it set out when it began a review of superfluous European legislation in March of this year.
The review considered legislative proposals adopted by the Commission before 1 January 2004 that have not yet been agreed by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.
The UK Presidency welcomed the move.
"It is in the interests of better lawmaking in the EU that proposals which, for example, are not based on a proper impact assessment and stakeholder consultation should be withdrawn," said John Hutton, UK minister for the Cabinet Office.
