{"id":8256,"date":"2012-03-27T18:52:17","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T17:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=8256"},"modified":"2012-03-27T18:54:58","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T17:54:58","slug":"why-we-all-need-regulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=8256","title":{"rendered":"Why we all need regulation"},"content":{"rendered":"

This afternoon, I attended a workshop convened by the National Consumer Federation<\/a> to debate the question “Are regulators failing consumers?” and to start the process of producing a Consumer Charter For Regulators. I was there in my capacity as a member of the Communications Consumer Panel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

in my break-out group, I argued that the Charter should begin by restating the need for regulation. So many business interests and quite a few politicians argue that regulation is an excessive cost on business that is overly intrusive and onerous. The simplistic mantra is often that we should have ‘light touch regulation’. In fact too little regulation can be a cost for \u00a0consumers, citizens and the economy as a whole and what we should be talking of is ‘right<\/em> touch regulation’.<\/p>\n

Inadequate or ineffective regulation can be a cost:<\/p>\n