Fallon's bonfire of the inanities singes Eurocracy Warm words, but what businesses have been looking for is action. Now, just over a year on from his appointment - and it should be noted that, during this period, Fallon has also been made minister of state at the Department for Energy and Climate Change, doubling his workload - they will be able to judge for themselves. As we report, the high-level task force appointed by David Cameron - at Fallon's behest - to look into ways of cutting red tape from our European cousins has come up with some very real, solid solutions. As Ian Cheshire explains, this is not just a problem for small companies starting out. His own business, Kingfisher, will see increased costs of potentially £3m as a result of EU legislation in the chemicals arena. What Cheshire and his fellow panel members, who include Marks & Spencer chief executive Marc Bolland and serial entrepreneur Dale Murray, are recommending to the Prime Minister are very direct ways of tackling regulation head-on. But, more important than the 30 recommendations themselves, is the mindset with which the six-man panel has come at this. Quite rightly, after consulting with hundreds of bodies and companies across the UK and Europe, they have seen the EU as something that can be an advantage to UK business, rather than a thorn in its side. Rather than simply complaining about rules that don't work, the report will instead focus on how those rules can be tweaked to benefit business rather than organisations which specialise in corporate box-ticking. As Steve Varley, chairman of EY UK & Ireland, told me earlier this week, the UK needs to make the EU more competitive from within. "We in the UK have to help the EU become more competitive on a global basis," he said. Major countries need to reduce bureaucracy from the EU. We need to start off making it more competitive as we're part of it. The good news is that Cheshire and Co found that although it sometimes feels as if the UK is outside, knocking to come in, many companies across Europe feel the same way about many of these costly regulations. As ever with the EU, the intention behind much business regulation is laudable, but the implementation seems to have got lost in translation. Let's hope this report will help the Prime Minister to rewrite the phrase-book. Royal Mail delivers Lloyds' solution Leaving questions over its valuation to one side, what was clear from the initial public offering of the Royal Mail was that demand from the general public for shares in the postal utility was significant. The retail element - which distributed 33pc of the shares on sale - was seven times subscribed, and ministers were forced to exclude some 35,000 who tried to buy more than £10,000 worth of shares. The ramifications of the float - and what I believe will be a significant price drift after the initial hysteria - will be well covered elsewhere, and as my colleague Louise Armitstead writes today, questions remain about the long-term future of the business as an independent entity now it is largely free from state ownership. But one thing we have learned is that, despite the economic gloom still being witnessed in many parts of the country, there is a clear appetite among retail investors for a chance to own shares in a well-funded utility which offers a decent dividend. Royal Mail aside, the number of IPOs which have allowed some element of retail involvement in recent years can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Treasury has said that it will consider a retail offer in the mix when deciding the best way to divest its remaining shares in Lloyds Banking Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland. But that will simply involve a redux of the Royal Mail offer, when only those able to afford the minimum £750 stake could get involved. Portman Capital's much-floated idea of giving away an element of shares in each bank to the 45m people on the UK's electoral roll is another option. Despite the obvious drawback that this would not bolster the Treasury's coffers, it's an idea which the Chancellor should give more thought to, particularly with a general election a little over 18 months away.