<P> Business representatives often claim red tape is a barrier to business, particularly small business . In Canada, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has done extensive research into the impact of red tape on small businesses . </P> <P> The European Commission has a competition that offers an award for the "Best Idea for Red Tape Reduction". The competition is "aimed at identifying innovative suggestions for reducing unnecessary bureaucracy stemming from European law". In 2008, the European Commission held a conference entitled' Cutting Red Tape for Europe' . The goal of the conference was "reducing red tape and overbearing bureaucracy," in order to help "business people and entrepreneurs improve competitiveness". </P> <P> In the UK, the ruling Conservative Party is actively reducing red tape with a joint team working across a newly (2016) formed ministry, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Cabinet Office . It follows on from the Red Tape Challenge that ran from 2011 to 2014 under the Conservative - Lib Dem Coalition of 2010 - 2015 . At its launch, then - Prime Minister David Cameron spoke of his intention to limit and reduce the 21,000 statutory rules and regulations in force at the time . By the end of the 3 - year initiative, 2,400 regulations had been scrapped, representing over 10% of the total . In all, it was estimated that businesses would be £ 40m a year better off as a result . Another key change as a result of this initiative was' Businesses with good records have had fire safety inspections reduced from 6 hours to 45 minutes, with the intention of allowing managers to quickly get back to their day job', something that was highlighted following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, with some suggesting that the extend of fire spread would've been limited prior to the change . </P>

Where did the phrase red tape come from