Browse regulations

The Gas and Electricity Regulated Providers (Redress Scheme) (Amendment) Order 2024 amends the 2008 Order to extend the existing consumer complaint redress scheme to small business consumers. It introduces a new definition of 'small business consumer' based on consumption thresholds (≤200,000 kWh electricity or ≤500,000 kWh gas) or business size thresholds (<50 employees, ≤£6.5m turnover or ≤£5m balance sheet), converts the relevant consumer threshold from Euros to Pounds Sterling, and clarifies how combined gas/electricity consumers are treated under the scheme.

While Better Britain generally opposes regulatory expansion, deleting this would leave small business consumers without recourse against energy provider misconduct. Small businesses lack the bargaining power of large commercial consumers and face genuine information and resource asymmetries when disputing with vertically integrated energy companies. The thresholds represent a reasonable balance between access to redress and scope limitation. The primary structural concern—that the UK's energy market lacks sufficient competition—is better addressed through market reform rather than removing this safety net from the smallest business consumers.

Amends the Thurrock Flexible Generation Plant Development Consent Order 2022 to increase the permitted number of gas reciprocating engines from 'up to 48' to 'up to 96' for Work no. 1. This is a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) consent order under the Planning Act 2008.

This consent order represents government allocation of development rights through a politicised consent regime rather than market mechanisms. The doubling of the engine cap from 48 to 96 exposes the arbitrary nature of the original limit — it was a political constraint, not a technical one. Such NSIP consent orders concentrate decision-making power in the Secretary of State's hands, distorting the energy market by picking winners and losers. Britons are worse off because this perpetuates a system where infrastructure development depends on government favour rather than competitive supply, raises costs through regulatory uncertainty, and creates barriers to entry for alternative generation technologies that might otherwise compete in a free market.

These Regulations commence specific provisions of the Energy Act 2023 on 1st October 2024, including: (1) section 166 - adding prohibition on unlicensed electricity activity to the Electricity Act 1989, (2) section 168 - adding prohibition on unlicensed gas activity to the Gas Act 1986, and (3) Schedule 11 - minor and consequential amendments relating to Part 5. The instrument operationalises licensing enforcement mechanisms in energy sectors.

Prohibitions on 'unlicensed activity' create regulatory barriers that protect incumbent energy providers from competition, raise costs for new entrants including community energy projects and distributed generation providers, and suppress innovation in the sector. While safety considerations in energy networks have some merit, blanket licensing prohibitions are blunt instruments that confer market power on established players. These provisions will make energy markets less competitive, ultimately harming British consumers and businesses through higher prices and reduced choice.

This is the National Grid (Bramford to Twinstead Reinforcement) Order 2024, a Development Consent Order under the Planning Act 2008 granting National Grid permission to construct electricity transmission infrastructure (400kV overhead lines and underground cables) between Bramford and Twinstead. The Order grants development consent, sets limits of deviation for works, confers extensive street works powers, applies modified permit schemes, authorizes compulsory purchase of land, and contains environmental and archaeological mitigation requirements.

Electricity transmission networks exhibit natural monopoly characteristics where coordination is necessary—duplicate infrastructure would be wasteful. While the NSIP regime involves central planning, the Bramford-Twinstead reinforcement underwent the full Planning Act 2008 examination process including public inquiry, achieving democratic legitimacy through that process. Deleting this Order would create legal uncertainty for a critical infrastructure project already under construction, potentially stranding investment and disrupting electricity supply to the region. The extensive environmental and archaeological requirements in Schedule 3 provide meaningful mitigation that would be difficult to replicate through private negotiation alone.

Amendment regulations that modify the Procurement Act 2023 Commencement No. 3 Regulations by extending various implementation dates from October 2024 to February 2025 and related dates in 2026 and 2029. Also inserts duplicate entries for section 93 (pipeline notices) in the Schedule and corrects a section reference from 111 to 110.

While the Procurement Act 2023 represents regulatory burden, this specific SI merely DELAYS implementation dates already set by Parliament. Deleting it would abruptly restore October 2024 deadlines, causing disruption to contracting authorities and suppliers who have planned around the February 2025 dates. The transitional and saving provisions exist to prevent legal gaps during regulatory transitions—removing them without corresponding changes would create incoherence and uncertainty. The minor Schedule errors (duplicate section 93 entry, section 111/110 correction) appear technical in nature.

This Order amends the Insolvency Proceedings (Fees) Order 2016 to increase various official receiver fees in insolvency proceedings. It raises the deposit threshold from £5,000 to £13,500, and increases bankruptcy administration fees (debtor application: £1,990 to £2,390; creditor petition: £2,775 to £3,300), winding up fees (£5,000 to £6,000 for standard court winding up; £7,500 to £13,500 for section 124A petitions), and the official receiver's general fee from £6,000 to £7,200. The changes take effect 9th January 2025 and apply to England and Wales.

This Order imposes significant fee increases averaging 20-80% on insolvency proceedings with no corresponding improvement in service or justification for the magnitude. Higher official receiver fees reduce the assets available for creditors in insolvency, discourage legitimate use of the bankruptcy system, and add to the cost of business failure—directly inhibiting entrepreneurial risk-taking. The 80% increase for section 124A winding up petitions (£7,500 to £13,500) is particularly egregious. These fees appear designed to extract revenue from distressed businesses and individuals rather than reflect genuine administrative costs, making them effectively stealth taxes on failure that harm economic dynamism.

These Regulations amend multiple Social Security benefit regulations (Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance, State Pension Credit, Housing Benefit, and Employment and Support Allowance) to add a new capital disregard (provision 5B) for payments made from the estate of a deceased person that derive from the Scottish Infected Blood Support Scheme or approved blood schemes, where the person was infected from contaminated blood products. The effect is that such compensation payments are excluded from the capital calculation when determining means-tested benefit entitlement.

Without this disregard, infected blood victims and their estates would have their compensation payments counted as capital, reducing or eliminating their means-tested benefit entitlement. This would effectively claw back compensation intended to remedy a catastrophic state-caused injustice through the benefit system. While the regulation creates a specific carve-out, the alternative—punishing victims of a wrongful death by reducing their surviving families' benefits based on inheritance—is unconscionable. Britons would be worse off if deleted because it would compound the harm done to those already grievously injured by state-compromised blood products.

These Regulations are a commencement order for the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, bringing into force provisions relating to: (1) advocates for victims of major incidents (appointment, terms, functions, reporting, guidance), and (2) imprisonment/detention for public protection and associated annual reporting requirements. The order specifies staggered commencement dates for different provisions.

This commencement order activates provisions that create new bureaucratic roles (advocates for major incidents) and annual reporting requirements for public protection detentions. While commencement orders are procedural, they give effect to regulatory machinery that was never subject to proper democratic scrutiny. The underlying Act imported EU-style bureaucratic structures for victims without evidence that market mechanisms or private advocacy would be inadequate. More fundamentally, as a retained EU law-era statutory instrument that continues expanding state involvement in private matters, it fails Better Britain's mission of restoring Britain's free-trading heritage and should be removed from the books.

Statutory instrument authorizing TEC Partnership (a further education college) to grant taught awards up to bachelor's degree level for an indefinite period, and permitting TEC Partnership to authorize other institutions to grant such awards on its behalf.

This Order grants rather than restricts: it authorizes an education provider to award degrees, which increases supply of higher education options. Deleting it would not make Britons better off—it would simply remove the specific legal authority for TEC Partnership to confer degrees, potentially disrupting students and limiting educational provision. Unlike typical regulatory instruments that impose costs through compliance burdens, this operates as an institutional charter enabling educational services.

These Regulations are a revocation instrument that comes into force the day after being made and revokes the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Commencement No. 2 and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2024. Essentially a technical legal instrument that reverses an earlier statutory instrument related to the commencement of the REUL Act 2023.

This regulation serves no independent purpose — it merely negates another regulation without restoring any substantive framework. The Commencement No. 2 regulations it revokes were presumably issued to bring certain REUL Act provisions into effect; undoing them creates legal uncertainty and regulatory hiatus. As a pure revocation-without-substitution, it leaves a gap rather than advancing any coherent policy. Such reflexive legislative rollback reflects poor governance and creates unnecessary legal turbulence for businesses trying to understand their regulatory obligations.

Statutory instrument authorizing The Northern School of Art to grant taught awards up to master's level for a fixed period (1 Oct 2024 – 1 Oct 2028), and permitting the school to authorize other institutions to grant such awards on its behalf.

Degree-awarding authority is a state-granted monopoly that restricts competition in higher education and limits individual freedom to obtain qualifications from unaccredited providers. While a 4-year sunset clause is included, the underlying framework is flawed: it is not the state's role to pick winners and losers in education. Removing this Order would not eliminate the institution's ability to operate, only its privileged degree-awarding monopoly — market mechanisms and private accreditation bodies can provide quality assurance without state intervention.

This statutory instrument dissolves the Dudley Integrated Health and Care NHS Trust and revokes two related 2008 and 2020 establishment orders for the Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust. It is a routine administrative reorganization effective 1st October 2024.

This Order dissolves rather than creates regulation. It is administrative housekeeping to wind down a public NHS body being reorganized, imposing no new regulatory requirements, compliance costs, or restrictions on economic activity. Britons are not worse off if this administrative dissolution is removed from the statute book, as it merely removes a redundant legal wrapper around a public body that has already ceased operating in its previous form.

Amends the Electricity (Standards of Performance) Regulations 2015 to redefine severe weather categories (1 and 2), remove category 3 from certain provisions, reduce the severe weather restoration window from 12 to 6 hours, and change the compensation cap mechanism for electricity distribution interruptions during severe weather.

Without these standards, consumers — particularly vulnerable individuals, the elderly, and those with medical needs — would lose guaranteed protections and compensation rights during severe weather-related power outages. Electricity distribution is a natural monopoly; consumers cannot switch providers if their distributor fails to restore power promptly. The regulation provides essential market discipline where competition cannot, and deletion would leave consumers with no recourse against prolonged outages that impose real costs on households and businesses.

This Order extends to the Isle of Man and revokes six sanctions orders: the Global Human Rights Sanctions (Isle of Man) Order 2020, Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions (Isle of Man) Order 2021, Myanmar (Sanctions) (Isle of Man) Order 2021, Haiti (Sanctions) (Isle of Man) Order 2022, Iran (Sanctions) (Isle of Man) Order 2023, and Haiti (Sanctions) (Isle of Man) (Amendment) Order 2023. It takes effect on 3rd October 2024.

Sanctions are trade restrictions that distort market incentives, impose compliance costs on businesses, reduce exports and economic activity, and often have unintended consequences such as harming ordinary citizens in targeted countries while elites find workarounds. Post-Brexit, Britain should not maintain术EU-derived sanctions regimes that restrict commerce — if the UK wishes to exert diplomatic pressure, targeted diplomatic measures are less distorting than economic sanctions that suppress trade.

This Order amends the Syria (Sanctions) (Overseas Territories) Order 2020 to make technical modifications extending Syria sanctions regulations to British overseas territories. Changes include: redirecting authority from Secretary of State to Treasury for petroleum product exceptions; clarifying Red Cross provisions apply to territory branches; and updating penalty cross-references. The Order comes into force 3rd October 2024.

These are technical, clarifying amendments to existing Syria sanctions regime that do not expand regulatory burden but rather streamline administrative authority and correct cross-references. Sanctions targeting hostile foreign regimes and terrorist organisations serve essential national security functions that private markets cannot self-organize to provide. Deletion would create legal uncertainty and enforcement gaps regarding conduct that poses serious risks to international peace and security.