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I am not a conspiracy theorist and I do not share the widespread assumption that most of our politicians are venal. Our elected representatives, from all parties, usually entered public life
with noble motives. Yet the uncomfortable truth is that vested interests — represented by highly effective lobbying groups — have managed to get too many regulations brought in that are not
just or reasonable. Brexit should gradually help. It will eventually mean that we can review the legacy of swathes of rules that were imposed from Brussels. The European Union is a
lobbyist’s dream. As Enoch Powell declared in 1982: “The institutions of the EEC create an ever-expanding vested interest on the part of those who service them, to whom this becomes a
livelihood and a way of life. Quite apart from politicians, there is the multitude of lobbyists, purporting to represent almost every interest with which the Common Market might interfere,
who have thus gained an illimitable extension to the parasitical profession of go-betweens and know-somebody-who-knows-somebody else.” One particular scandal involved European car
manufacturers lobbying the EU for rules that promoted diesel cars. Diesel does produce 15 per cent less CO2 than petrol and so the change was justified as being eco friendly. Diesel cars
went from less than 10 per cent of the UK market in 1995 to more than half in 2012. The problem was that CO2 is only one of the polluting gases caused by engine exhaust — a diesel engine
emits a lot more more gas and particulates, making it more polluting overall than a petrol engine. The change brought in by the EU was very damaging to air quality and thus public health.
Volkswagen was later found to have been programming some of its engines to cheat emissions tests. Yet it would be naive to imagine the pressures for bad laws will be lifted. One might think
that business groups would favour scrapping red tape. Yet often a particular sector finds it would be more profitable for further regulation to be brought in — if it could mean extracting
more loot to their firms from the taxpayer or the consumer, or sabotaging rivals. Economists call this “rent-seeking”, a confusing term as it does not have to be related to the rent paid on
land or buildings. Rent-seeking, in this case, means extracting extra profit by manipulating public policy rather than providing increased value — Adam Smith would give the example of
seeking tariff protection. What makes it all the more exasperating is that businesses pushing for these special favours usually proclaim the most virtuous of motives. “The louder he talked
of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons,” as the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked. Safety legislation is one area being distorted. There were 243 fire-related fatalities
last year. Ten years earlier it was 328 and 20 years ago it was 485. But the horror of the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, when 72 people perished has quite rightly kept up the pressure to do
better. To “do better” in actually saving lives means practical measures. That means having the honesty to accept that costs can not be unlimited and that 100 per cent safety can not be
achieved. From the evidence I have seen installing sprinklers would be a more effective way to proceed. Within that caveat that risk can never be eliminated, it is a pretty powerful point
that no lives have been lost in the UK due to fire in homes fitted with domestic sprinkler systems.