Browse regulations

A local government administrative order that adjusts district ward boundaries to align with a 2013 parish boundary reorganisation between Crostwick and Spixworth. It specifies commencement dates for electoral proceedings and general purposes, and extends to England and Wales but applies to England only.

This is a purely technical boundary alignment that corrects a mismatch between parish and district ward boundaries created by the 2013 community governance order. Without this regulation, voters in the affected area would face confusion about their correct electoral representation, and district councillors' constituencies would not correspond to actual parish boundaries. The deletion would create administrative chaos at election time with no corresponding benefit. This does not impose economic regulations, market restrictions, or bureaucratic burdens of the type this review targets—it simply ensures coherent democratic representation.

Amends the Taxes (Interest Rate) Regulations 1989 to increase the statutory interest rate on unpaid taxes from 2.00% to 2.25% per annum, effective 6th April 2023. This rate is used by HMRC to calculate interest on late tax payments and repayments.

Without this regulation, there would be no clear statutory basis for calculating interest on unpaid taxes, creating legal uncertainty and encouraging costly litigation. While government-mandated interest rates involve some price-setting concerns, the alternative—relying on judicial discretion or ad hoc determination—would be worse for taxpayers and the Exchequer alike. The rate remains modest and provides predictability.

Amends three EU regulations (2007/777/EC, 798/2008, 206/2010) to update approved country lists and veterinary certification requirements for imports of animals and animal products. Adds Switzerland and Iceland to approved lists for certain meat products, updates Switzerland's entries, and removes Russia's transit provisions.

These are administrative amendments implementing internationally negotiated veterinary health certifications and country approvals. While generally supportive of trade liberalization, deleting these would create regulatory gaps in food safety verification for imports, harming both consumers and traders. The amendments themselves facilitate trade by adding approved countries, not restricting it. Any replacement system would require equivalent veterinary certification mechanisms to ensure food safety, making deletion counterproductive without systemic reform.

This Development Consent Order (DCO) grants National Highways Limited consent to construct and maintain upgrades to the A47 between Wansford and Sutton, including new trunk roads, altered junctions, footpaths, cycle tracks, and associated infrastructure. It establishes road classifications, speed limits, traffic regulation measures, and street alteration powers. The Order defines limits of deviation for construction works, addresses temporary possession of land, and contains provisions for transferring benefits of the consent to other parties such as utility companies (Anglian Water, NGED, NGG). It applies various Highways Act 1980 and New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 provisions with modifications.

This DCO is project-specific consent for nationally significant infrastructure under the Planning Act 2008 — it is not a regulatory burden of the type this review targets. Deleting it would prevent the A47 upgrade, a critical road improvement that reduces transport bottlenecks, improves connectivity, and generates economic benefits. Unlike EU-derived regulations that impose compliance costs with questionable benefits, this Order simply authorises a specific road scheme subject to extensive environmental scrutiny and statutory requirements. The infrastructure it enables aligns with economic growth objectives, and its specific, time-limited consent mechanism cannot be characterised as an ongoing regulatory burden on commerce.

Amends the Income and Corporation Taxes (Electronic Communications) Regulations 2003 to extend electronic communication arrangements to additional tax provisions (sections 28H, 28I, 28J, 30A) and corrects a reference to paragraph 4. Comes into force 6 April 2023.

This regulation facilitates rather than restricts. It extends electronic communication options for tax matters, reducing administrative burden on businesses by allowing digital filing instead of mandatory paper submission. Britons would be worse off if deleted because it removes a convenient, cost-saving communication option with HMRC for the specified tax provisions. No regulatory burden is imposed—businesses retain the choice to use electronic or traditional methods.

Amends the Trade Remedies (Dumping and Subsidisation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 to modify the 'relevant period' for anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations. Allows the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) to recommend these duties apply from dates specified in injury determinations, and allows duty amounts to be maintained at or below final determination levels during the relevant period.

These regulations perpetuate a protectionist trade remedy regime that raises prices for British consumers and downstream industries. Anti-dumping and countervailing duties are economically harmful tariffs that distort market signals, punish efficient foreign producers, and invite retaliation against UK exports. The underlying retained EU trade remedy framework represents exactly the bureaucratic burden Brexit was meant to address. While this amendment is technically minor, it strengthens a regime whose fundamental premise—government allocation of trade punishment rather than market competition—is incompatible with Adam Smith's free trade principles that made Britain great.

These 2023 Regulations amend the NHS (Joint Working and Delegation Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2022 by adding interpretation provisions, modifying joint working arrangements, and inserting regulation 3 clarifying that section 65Z5(1) powers do not apply to certain NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS funded nursing care decisions. They include transitional provisions ensuring continuity for arrangements entered into between July 2022 and April 2023.

These regulations are administrative housekeeping that preserve existing delegation arrangements and clarify which NHS bodies can make certain healthcare decisions. Deletion would create legal uncertainty around ongoing joint working arrangements for NHS Continuing Healthcare assessments and could disrupt care provision for vulnerable patients. The regulations govern internal NHS administrative coordination rather than restricting private healthcare supply or creating market distortions.

These Regulations amend the Loans for Mortgage Interest Regulations 2017, which provide interest-bearing loans to help welfare recipients cover mortgage payments. Key changes include: reducing the qualifying period from 9 to 3 months; removing a waiting period before loan payments begin; extending eligibility to couples where one member receives State Pension Credit; and allowing UC claimants who regain entitlement within 6 months to avoid re-serving a qualifying period.

This regulation expands government welfare provision for housing, directly contradicting free-market principles. Reducing the qualifying period from 9 to 3 months increases dependency on state assistance for mortgage payments. Extending eligibility to couples and removing waiting periods draws more homeowners into government dependency. Such welfare programs distort housing market incentives, create moral hazard, artificially sustain demand for owner-occupation that would otherwise find market correction, and represent government picking winners in housing finance. The state has no business intervening in private mortgage arrangements between consenting parties.

These Regulations establish the Oil and Gas Authority's levy and fee framework for 2023/24, setting a total levy of £35,155,000 on licensees comprising production levies on offshore production licences and non-production levies on exploration and certain production licences. They include discount schemes for micro-enterprises (80-90% reductions), interest penalties for late payment (5% over Bank base rate), and amend the 2016 Fees Regulations to add new fee categories for carbon dioxide storage activities and petroleum extraction consents.

The OGA levy regime is a bureaucratic cost imposed on an industry that should function through market mechanisms. The £35m levy funds a regulator that controls access to petroleum resources through licensing restrictions—itself a significant government intervention that distorts investment decisions and restricts competition. The micro-enterprise discount schemes (80-90% reductions) create arbitrary preferential treatment that distorts market entry. Complex discount eligibility rules, joint-and-several liability for multi-person licensees, and punitive interest provisions (5% over base rate) add compliance burdens without clear justification. The amendments expanding fees for carbon dioxide storage and petroleum extraction consents extend regulatory control into new areas. As Friedman and Hayek recognised, such regulatory institutions tend to perpetuate themselves and expand their scope over time, adding cumulative costs that drive business elsewhere. Post-Brexit Britain should not maintain this level of intervention in the energy sector.

Consequential amendments and prescribed functions regulations made under the Building Safety Act 2022. They: (1) remove obsolete transitional provisions related to the old Building Regulations Advisory Committee by amending the Welsh Ministers (Transfer of Functions) Order 2009 and Freedom of Information Order 2010; (2) prescribe the Building Safety Regulator's functions as statutory consultee for fire safety matters in higher-risk buildings under planning legislation; (3) amend the Architects Act 1997 by omitting an outdated paragraph.

The amendments are primarily consequential cleanup of obsolete transitional provisions rendered redundant by the Building Safety Act 2022. The prescribed functions for the Building Safety Regulator as statutory consultee on fire safety for higher-risk buildings address genuine life-safety concerns in the planning process — without this designation, fire safety considerations for dangerous buildings could be bypassed. While the underlying Building Safety Act creates a new regulator (which raises broader concerns about regulatory expansion), these specific provisions merely operationalise statutory requirements and remove outdated references rather than imposing new regulatory burdens.

Sets 1st April 2024 as the valuation date for determining rateable values of non-domestic hereditaments for the next compilation of non-domestic rating lists in England. Comes into force 1st April 2023.

This is a purely procedural/administrative instrument establishing the valuation snapshot date for business rates. While business rates themselves are a distortionary tax on capital and property, this Order merely sets the date—its deletion would create administrative chaos with no rating lists able to be compiled. The regulation itself imposes no additional burden; it is a necessary administrative mechanism for an existing system, not a source of new regulatory成本.

These Regulations amend the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1987 and the Universal Credit etc. (Claims and Payments) Regulations 2013 regarding fuel cost deductions from benefits. Key changes include: (1) replacing 'equal to' with 'not more than' for deductible amounts, providing flexibility; (2) inserting new consent requirements requiring beneficiary/claimant agreement before deductions can be made (except for reduction applications); (3) requiring applications to be made by the person/body to whom payment is due. The Regulations also revoke the 2022 Modification Regulations.

While these regulations govern deductions from social security benefits — an area where less government intervention would be preferable — these specific amendments actually improve the position of beneficiaries. The change from 'equal to' to 'not more than' limits deduction exposure, and the new consent requirements prevent deductions without beneficiary agreement (except for reductions). Britons would be worse off if deleted because removal would revert to potentially more aggressive deduction rules with fewer protections, removing the consent safeguard that prevents creditors from extracting unlimited amounts from vulnerable benefit recipients through government-enforced deductions.

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Annual statutory instrument updating National Insurance Contributions rates, limits and thresholds for tax year 2023-24. Increases Class 2 contributions from £3.15 to £3.45, Class 3 from £15.85 to £17.45, raises lower profits threshold to £12,570, extends upper secondary threshold for freeport/veterans, and sets the prescribed National Insurance Fund payment percentage at 5%.

This regulation perpetuates a regressive payroll tax that acts as a employment barrier, particularly harming young workers, part-time workers, and the self-employed. The mechanical annual uprating of NIC thresholds removes these decisions from proper democratic scrutiny—Parliament merely approves Treasury formulae rather than debating tax rates openly. While this SI only adjusts parameters within an existing system, keeping it maintains the illusion that incremental NIC increases are technical rather than political choices. The combined employee-employer NIC burden distorts hiring decisions and erodes wage competitiveness. Each year's retention of NIC rate regulations normalizes taxation of labor as a matter of administrative routine rather than requiring fresh parliamentary justification.

Annual up-rating regulation adjusting working tax credit element rates, child tax credit maximum rates, income thresholds, child benefit rates, and guardian's allowance rates for 2023 to account for inflation and cost of living changes.

While beneficiaries would face reduced real incomes without these up-ratings, this regulation perpetuates a system of means-tested tax credits that Friedman would identify as creating perverse incentives — suppressing labor supply, rewarding dependency over work, and distorting market wages. The welfare trap inherent in steep benefit withdrawal rates (often losing £1 in benefits for every £1 earned) does more long-term harm than the temporary relief these up-ratings provide. A negative income tax or flat work incentive structure would achieve poverty alleviation without these structural distortions. The regulation should be deleted as part of a systematic reform toward a simpler, more liberty-enhancing welfare architecture.