THE government should get off the back of business, says Cheryl Gillan, Tory MP for Chesham and Amersham.

"The government has got to give business a break," she said. "It is not the cash cow they think it is."

The MP was speaking at a meeting of the Institute of Directors at the Chartridge Conference Centre near Chesham on Friday, where business leaders made it clear to a panel of MPs that they were fed up with regulation overload.

Mrs Gillan explained the number of new business regulations was frightening with 4,642 new ones in 2001. She added: "If you have a government that allows that weight of regulation you reduce business competitiveness."

With only one Labour MP in on the panel, Phyllis Starkey a Milton Keynes member, the directors found a deal of sympathy for their plight.

Aylesbury MP David Lidington said there should be sunset clauses written into new regulations so they died after, say, five years, or had to be reviewed. There were far too many regulations and there should be a downwards pressure each year, he said, plus exemptions for smaller businesses.

Mr Lidington also suggested a cut in the number of regulations and extra taxes imposed on the manufacturing sector which he claimed led industry to go where costs were lower.

Mrs Starkey fought back saying industry was held back not by regulations but by the fact that there were not enough skilled people to do the jobs.

She argued regulations served a good purpose: "It is not sensible to keep talking about this as if all changes were reprehensible. There are very good reasons for regulations. They are there to protect the public."

Mrs Starkey added that regulations were a burden but for the public good. They gave employees better conditions and many were family orientated, giving paternity and maternity leave and flexible working.

"If employers respect the employees and make life easier, the employees are more likely to give you a good service," she said.

Wycombe MP Paul Goodman said he admired the Chancellor's aim of marrying economic prosperity with social justice, but he was cynical about whether it would work.

He said: "I think he is using business as a way of running the social security system."

Mrs Starkey said the working families tax credit had put lots of extra people into work who had been in the poverty trap because they were worse off in work than on benefit. "It is an extremely important measure," she said.