RED tape would be slashed at a stroke if MPs were forced to become self-employed. That's the startling proposal by Kent business expert Peter Nicholson.

He says that every initiative has so far failed to control the explosion of rules and regulations.

Despite lip service by Government, precious little has been done. Even the Government's Small Business Service has not succeeded in lightening the increasing burden weighing on the backs of business owners.

But if each MP were obliged to become self-employed and set up as a limited liability company, all that would change, he predicted.

He said: "Make that happen and you will have solved your red tape problem within six months because they would begin to think in terms of what it's like to have to deal with all these measures."