The regulation business

While Daniel Antal‘s poor farmers and street traders demonstrate for free trade and deregulation, here is a British business perspective on government regulation, from the letters page of yesterday’s (August 29 2002) Times:

Sir, The UK Government places a strong incentive on industry to monitor the amount of packaging it produces, by means of the Packaging Waste Regulations. Under these regulations, everyone from the producers of the packaging to those who sell it (for example, the supermarkets) has to pay a levy for each piece of packaging handled.

These regulations can be quite complex, and many members use compliance schemes to help them to meet their obligations. Valpak is the UK’s largest compliance scheme, with over 3,200 members from throughout industry. Our philosophy is not only to ensure that our members achieve compliance, but also to ensure that the money generated by meeting the obligations is used in a responsible manner, to aid and encourage recycling.

All of us, both industry and consumers, can help to increase recycling and reduce the amount of packaging produced in the UK.

Yours faithfully,
J. Cox
(Chief Executive Officer),
Valpak Ltd,
Stratford Business Park,
Banbury Road,
Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 7GW
August 23.

I’m sure we’d agree that recycling is a fine thing, if anyone can make of it a profitable business that doesn’t depend on anyone being compelled to do it. Millions in the third world do scratch a living from genuine recycling, although no doubt there are all kinds of Transnazi plans afoot to forbid such activities, based on the notion that the way to get rid of poverty is to make it illegal.

But Valpak is just the expansion of the public sector, done slightly differently to the way we’ve been used to. They’re civil servants tricked out as businessmen. Try to imagine what Mr Cox thinks about deregulation.

We cannot rely on capitalists to defend capitalism (sprinkle inverted commas to taste).