Browse regulations

These regulations amend the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 to increase the national living wage from £9.50 to £10.42 per hour, increase tiered minimum wage rates for different worker categories (apprentices, 16-17 year olds, 18-20 year olds), and raise the accommodation offset from £8.70 to £9.10 per day. The changes take effect 1st April 2023.

Minimum wage laws are price floors that predictably reduce employment opportunities for low-skilled workers, youth, and entry-level workers—the very people they claim to help. They distort labor market signals, create barriers to workforce participation, accelerate automation, and push some employment underground. Market competition, not government decree, is the sustainable mechanism for raising living standards. The unemployment and reduced hours that result from mandatory wage floors harm the workers they purport to protect.

These Rules amend the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) Rules 2003 to add Part 4A establishing procedures for Secretary of State applications under Schedule 4A to the British Nationality Act 1981 regarding 'conducive grounds deprivation order without notice'. Key provisions include: applications must contain specified information about the subject; determinations must be made on paper without a hearing within 14 days; the Secretary of State is the only party to proceedings; and the Secretary of State may vary, file new documents, or withdraw applications. Additional amendments add requirements for the Commission to explain how it has taken account of section 8 behaviour (Asylum and Immigration Act 2004) and late material under section 22 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 when making determinations.

This regulation creates and governs a procedure for deprivation of British nationality 'without notice' to the affected person, who is explicitly excluded from being a party to proceedings. The combination of: (1) no notice to the person being deprived of citizenship, (2) no hearing, (3) no party status for the individual, and (4) a 14-day determination timeline creates a profound denial of natural justice. While government may have legitimate national security interests, stripping individuals of their nationality without providing them opportunity to be heard violates foundational principles of due process. These Rules codify a procedure that could render individuals stateless through a process where the subject is kept entirely ignorant and has no right to participate. Such a mechanism is incompatible with a free and just society and should not exist in statute.

This Order amends the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust (Establishment) Order 1994, updating the trust's governing provisions. It substitutes new definitions of 'the trust', simplifies the trust's stated functions to provide goods and services for the health service, changes the accounting date to 31st March, and revokes provisions relating to limited functions before operational date and assistance by health authorities. The Order extends to England and Wales and comes into force on 1st April 2023.

This amendment Order makes purely administrative changes to a 1994 Establishment Order for a single NHS Trust. It does not impose any new regulatory burdens, but neither does it remove the underlying establishment framework. The Order should be deleted because: (1) NHS Trust establishment Orders are administrative instruments that confer statutory corporate status - such structural delegations should be consolidated into primary legislation rather than perpetuated through amendment Orders; (2) the retention of these Orders creates cluttered statute books with overlapping instruments spanning decades; (3) once the operational date has passed and trust is functioning, the transitional provisions (articles 6 and 7) being revoked renders much of this instrument unnecessary retroactively. The substantive trust can continue to operate under common law powers without this instrument.

These regulations establish 25th February 2023 as the first qualifying day for means-tested additional payments under section 1 of the Social Security (Additional Payments) Act 2023. They apply across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and came into force on 17th April 2023.

This regulation merely establishes an administrative start date for an existing welfare payment framework enacted by Parliament. It imposes no regulatory burden on economic activity, does not restrict trade, business operations, or market access. As a pure date-setting instrument for statutory payments, deleting it would create legal uncertainty and administrative dysfunction without any corresponding economic benefit. Britons would be worse off if additional payments to vulnerable individuals were delayed or became legally uncertain due to absence of a defined qualifying day.

These regulations bring into force various provisions of the Building Safety Act 2022 on specified dates (1st April 2023, 6th April 2023, and 1st October 2023). They cover the establishment of the building safety regulator, higher-risk building regime, competence requirements for industry and building inspectors, information sharing systems, amendments to the Building Act 1984, fire safety Order amendments, landlord and tenant provisions regarding remediation costs and service charges, and commonhold reforms. The regulations also include transitional provisions excluding certain consultation requirements from section 120B of the Building Act 1984.

While the Building Safety Act 2022 represents a significant expansion of regulatory burden on developers, landlords, and building owners, this commencement regulation is merely the administrative mechanism for activating provisions that Parliament has already enacted. Deleting this SI would simply delay implementation rather than remove the underlying regulatory requirements, which must be addressed through primary legislation. Furthermore, these provisions respond to genuine safety failures (Grenfell Tower tragedy) where previous regulatory gaps contributed to loss of life. The building safety regime's core elements—competence requirements, the accountable person framework, and information systems—address real systemic failures in the previous regulatory architecture. However, specific provisions within the Act (such as certain service charge recovery mechanisms and the expanded landlord obligations) warrant separate review for gold-plating or disproportionate impact.

East Suffolk Internal Drainage Board Order 2023 establishes the board and confirms a scheme submitted by the Environment Agency. The Order governs the management of water levels, land drainage, and related functions in low-lying areas of East Suffolk.

Internal Drainage Boards impose drainage rates on landowners, creating ongoing financial burdens. The board constitutes an additional layer of bureaucracy that can restrict land use, impede agricultural operations, and add regulatory transaction costs to development. While water management is important, this regulatory body should be replaced with more efficient, market-oriented approaches or consolidated into existing local authority structures to reduce duplication and cost.

Amends the Merchant Shipping (Seamen's Documents) Regulations 1987 by removing paragraph (a) from regulation 3(2) and expanding paragraph (c) to include persons employed in fishing vessels alongside cadets, effectively extending seaman documentation requirements to fishing vessel employees.

Extends bureaucratic documentation requirements to fishing vessel employees with no clear evidence the compliance costs are justified by safety benefits. Fishing vessels are typically smaller operations where such documentation requirements impose disproportionate administrative burden relative to larger commercial vessels already covered. This represents the typical pattern of accumulating regulatory scope over time without systematic review of necessity.

Amends the National Health Service (Dental Charges) Regulations 2005 to increase NHS dental charge bands in England: Band 1 rises from £23.80 to £25.80, Band 2 from £65.20 to £70.70, and Band 3 from £282.80 to £306.80, effective 24 April 2023.

These regulations perpetuate the NHS near-monopoly on dental care, which suppresses private alternatives and produces the wait times that make British dental care scandalous by international standards. Government-set prices for NHS dentistry distort incentives, create artificial demand at subsidised rates, and ration care through queuing rather than price. The stated purpose is cost recovery for the NHS, but the deeper cost is a market structure that denies patients the benefits of competition and choice. Deletion would not eliminate dental care—it would simply remove one pillar of a system that should be deregulated to allow private providers to flourish, giving patients real alternatives to state-rationed services.

These Regulations transfer functions from Health Education England (HEE) to NHS England, abolish HEE as a body corporate, and provide transitional and consequential provisions including treatment of ongoing legal proceedings, documents, and forms. They extend to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and came into force on 1st April 2023.

While this regulation reinforces NHS monopoly structures, deleting it would leave HEE's functions in limbo with no designated successor, creating legal uncertainty and disrupting healthcare education commissioning. The regulation is purely administrative machinery for a government reorganization rather than a new regulatory burden. Removing it would harm Britons by creating institutional confusion during transition without advancing market-oriented healthcare reform.

These regulations amend the Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy Regulations 2022, which establish a levy on FCA-regulated firms, HMRC-registered businesses, and Gambling Commission licensees to fund anti-money laundering efforts. The amendments add: new definitions, assessment powers for HMRC and Gambling Commission to recover unpaid levy to 'best of judgement' (including 20-year time limits where no return was made), information and document request powers, 6-year record-keeping obligations, financial penalties for various compliance failures, appeals processes, and overpayment repayment provisions.

While anti-money laundering is a legitimate objective, this amendment compounds an already burdensome compliance regime with: (1) assessment powers allowing authorities to determine liability 'to the best of their judgement' with 20-year backstop periods creating perpetual liability risk; (2) 6-year mandatory record preservation requirements imposing ongoing administrative costs; (3) broad information request powers without adequate proportionality safeguards; (4) penalty escalation provisions that layer additional punishment for late compliance. The compliance costs —accountant fees, legal review, systems to track filings—fall disproportionately on smaller regulated entities and ultimately are passed to consumers. The original 2022 regulations already created a complex self-assessment regime; this amendment expands enforcement mechanisms without evidence the underlying compliance rate problem requires such expansion. These regulations inherit the EU-derived tendency toward prescriptive, enforcement-heavy approaches rather than principles-based regulation that would better serve the UK's competitive position as a global financial centre.

A commencement order bringing into force on 1 April 2023 various provisions of the Health and Care Act 2022, including: CQC reviews of integrated care systems (s.31), NHS trust licensing (s.51), the NHS payment scheme (s.77 & Sch.10), and local authority adult social care regulation powers (ss.163-165). Extends to England and Wales.

Commencement orders are procedural instruments that merely activate dates for provisions already enacted in primary legislation. Deleting this order would not remove the underlying regulatory burdens — those provisions of the Health and Care Act 2022 would still come into force via other commencement orders or by default. As a pure timing mechanism, this instrument adds no substantive regulatory content of its own to assess. The underlying policy concerns (NHS trust licensing, expanded CQC powers, Secretary of State default powers over local authorities) reflect the same statist approach that creates Britain's healthcare dysfunction — but those are questions for primary legislation, not commencement instruments. A commencement order is the wrong vehicle for meaningful regulatory reform.

Amendment to the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) (Payment of Claims) Regulations 1988, effective 1 April 2023. Updates lump sum payment amounts for victims of pneumoconiosis, diffuse mesothelioma, and related industrial diseases. Increases include: death benefit from £3,425 to £3,771 for diffuse mesothelioma; tuberculosis supplement from £7,085 to £7,801; minimum dependant payment from £3,425 to £3,771; and comprehensive revisions to compensation tables based on age and disability percentage assessment. Applies to new claims from 1 April 2023 in England, Wales, and Scotland.

Britons would be worse off if deleted because these are no-fault compensation payments for industrial disease victims (pneumoconiosis, mesothelioma, tuberculosis) who suffer real harm. Without this scheme, most claimants would have no viable compensation pathway - employers may no longer exist, the statute of limitations may have expired, or litigation costs would consume most awards. The administrative scheme efficiently delivers compensation that would otherwise require costly, uncertain common law litigation. The payments are targeted at genuine victims with documented conditions, not general welfare spending.

Amendment to the Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments Regulations 2008, updating payment amounts for victims of diffuse mesothelioma (and their dependents) diagnosed or dying on or after 1 April 2023. The Schedule substitutes revised payment tables with higher lump sum amounts based on age at diagnosis or death. Funded by a levy on insurers, not general taxation.

These payments address a genuine market failure where mesothelioma victims—often exposed to asbestos decades ago through no fault of their own—cannot obtain adequate compensation through litigation when liable employers no longer exist or are insolvent. Unlike typical regulations that distort incentives or restrict supply, this is a no-fault compensation scheme funded by a targeted industry levy that internalizes an existing risk. Deleting it would leave terminally ill cancer patients and their bereaved dependents without any recourse to compensation, causing severe financial harm that cannot be remedied by private markets in practice.

This Order amends the Education (National Curriculum) (Key Stage 1 Assessment Arrangements) (England) Order 2004 by revoking Article 4 (assessment), Article 5 (standard task assessment for English and mathematics), and Article 6 (moderation of assessments). It also removes numerous definitions related to the old assessment framework, simplifies the NC tests definition, and makes technical amendments to reduce regulatory burden on schools.

This Order reduces regulatory burden by eliminating costly standard task assessments and moderation requirements at Key Stage 1. Schools will face lower compliance costs while retaining flexibility to assess pupils through methods they determine appropriate. The transition provisions preserving the old framework through the 2022-23 school year ensure continuity. Removal of prescriptive national test mandates allows teachers greater professional autonomy and reduces administrative overhead without eliminating assessment altogether - schools can still conduct their own assessments as they see fit.

Extends zero-rate VAT on installation of energy-saving materials to Northern Ireland (1 May 2023 to 31 March 2027), previously applicable only in England, Wales and Scotland. Also adds wind turbines and water turbines to qualifying materials. Amends Schedule 7A to shift certain Northern Ireland installations from reduced rate to zero rate from April 2027.

This regulation uses the tax system to subsidize particular products (energy-saving materials) through zero-rate VAT, distorting market decisions and directing resources toward politically-favored goods rather than higher-value alternatives. It perpetuates the EU's 'green' subsidy approach without evidence of genuine benefit. The compliance burden on businesses navigating complex VAT groups and temporal carve-outs outweighs any environmental externality argument. Post-Brexit Britain should not retain regulations that pick winners through fiscal policy — the market, not Treasury officials, should determine which materials and technologies prevail.