Campaigners from the county have helped persuade the Government to ease the burden of red tape.

Just days after Kent and Medway members of the Federation of Small Businesses travelled to London in a bright red double-decker bus to lobby MPs, ministers announced a review of business regulations.

It aims to do this by imposing regulatory budgets on government departments.

The FSB delegation met Paul Clark, MP for Gillingham, Damian Green (Ashford), Hugh Robertson (Faversham and Mid Kent) and Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling).

Roger House, chairman of the 6,900-strong FSB for Kent and Medway, said: "This was a good opportunity for the owners of small businesses to explain the loss of productivity and revenue caused by the administration of regulatory compliance."

The proposals by the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform are part of a consultation exercise designed to find better ways of implementing new rules and scrapping existing ones.

They would limit the cost of new regulation, and encourage departments to offset the cost of new regulations with savings made by axing existing ones.

The Better Regulation Executive would monitor the system, with Parliament given the right to quiz departments that go over budget.

Secretary of State for Business John Hutton, said: "Good regulation should drive competition and boost our productivity. But too many new rules can stifle enterprise and blunt our competitive edge.

"If the UK is to remain a respected place to do business, we must not expect business simply to absorb the costs of a stream of new Government initiatives. The introduction of a regulatory budget for every department will focus new regulations on the real priorities and act as a powerful incentive for departments to cut or streamline existing burdens."

The Government says it wants to cut red tape by a quarter by 2010.