Browse regulations

Amendment to the Emissions Performance Standard Regulations 2015 that updates cross-references from EU law to the UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme Order 2020 (GGETS Order), ensuring the EPS framework remains functional post-Brexit. The amendment clarifies reporting requirements for emissions before and after 1 January 2021, replacing references to EU regulations (Monitoring and Reporting Regulation 2012, Verification Regulation) with their UK-implemented equivalents.

This amendment perpetuates a command-and-control regulatory approach that restricts when and how fossil fuel power stations may operate based on arbitrary carbon intensity thresholds set by government rather than market signals. The EPS distorts energy markets by picking winners and losers, increasing costs for consumers without guaranteeing emissions reductions are achieved efficiently. A carbon pricing mechanism would achieve emissions objectives more effectively. Additionally, this amendment exemplifies the 'retained EU law' problem: inherited wholesale from EU legislation with no democratic review of whether the underlying regulatory approach serves British interests. The core EPS regime should be reconsidered rather than incrementally maintained through technical fixes.

The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) (Automated Vehicles) Order 2022 modifies regulation 109(1) of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 to permit automated vehicles to display information on their built-in apparatus while driving themselves, provided the vehicle is not requesting the driver to take over control. It applies to automated vehicles as defined by the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018.

This regulation enables rather than restricts automated vehicle technology by creating a targeted exemption from display restrictions when vehicles are genuinely driving themselves autonomously. The underlying safety rationale for display restrictions (driver distraction) does not apply when a vehicle is driving itself and not requesting takeover. Removing this would prevent legitimate uses of in-vehicle information systems for autonomous vehicles, harming UK competitiveness in autonomous vehicle development without corresponding safety benefit.

Commencement regulations bringing into force various provisions of the Armed Forces Act 2021 on 1st May 2022, including Court Martial constitution, summary hearings, reserve forces commitments, service complaints appeals, tri-service serious crime unit framework, deprivation and driving disqualification orders, and related procedural matters. Also includes transitional provisions for Royal Marines corporal detention awards.

These are procedural commencement regulations that merely activate provisions Parliament has already enacted in the Armed Forces Act 2021. Deleting them would create legal uncertainty and administrative chaos in the armed forces justice system, leaving service personnel without clear disciplinary procedures, complaints mechanisms, or statutory rights. The transitional provision at the end actually protects individuals by preventing retroactive application of new detention powers. As commencement regulations, they impose no regulatory burden themselves - they simply determine when already-debated legislation takes effect.

Minor amendment to the International Tax Compliance Regulations 2015, changing a deadline date from 20th April 2021 to 20th April 2022. This is a purely administrative date correction to keep the regulations current.

This instrument is merely a technical date correction with no substantive policy content. While the underlying International Tax Compliance Regulations 2015 raise legitimate concerns about financial privacy and international tax surveillance architecture, this specific instrument simply updates an outdated deadline. Deleting it would leave the 2015 regulations with a now-past deadline of 20th April 2021, creating administrative confusion and potential compliance issues with no corresponding benefit. The amendment causes no additional restriction of liberty beyond the existing framework.

This is the M54 to M6 Link Road Development Consent Order 2022, a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project authorization under the Planning Act 2008. It grants development consent to National Highways Limited to construct a new road link between the M54 and M6 motorways, incorporating provisions for compulsory purchase of land, temporary possession, street works, traffic regulation (speed limits, road classifications), and the stopping up or diversion of streets and public rights of way. The Order defines the 'authorised development' (Work Nos. 1-70), establishes the Order limits and limits of deviation, and contains standard protective provisions for statutory undertakers, drainage, and maintenance responsibilities.

This is project-specific infrastructure authorization, not a regulatory burden of the type targeted by this review. Unlike retained EU laws or gold-plated directives, this Development Consent Order is a purpose-built authorization for a specific road infrastructure project that will enhance national connectivity and trade. Deleting it would prevent the M54-M6 link from being constructed, harming economic activity and doing so would produce worse outcomes than keeping it. Infrastructure development is precisely the type of investment that Adam Smith and early free traders would have supported as engines of economic growth.

The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 9) Regulations 2022 amend the Russia (Sanctions) Regulations 2019 to impose internet service restrictions targeting designated persons. The regulations require social media services, internet access service providers, and application stores to take 'reasonable steps' to prevent designated persons' content from being accessed by UK users. They create criminal offences for non-compliance and grant OFCOM powers to request information, impose monetary penalties up to £1,000,000, and pursue prosecutions.

This regulation imposes significant costs on UK businesses and tech sector through mandatory content policing obligations, with vague 'reasonable steps' compliance standards creating legal uncertainty. It effectively mandates private censorship, transferring enforcement costs to social media platforms, ISPs, and app stores while penalising them for failing to perfectly police designated persons' speech. The £1,000,000 penalty threshold creates substantial regulatory risk that could deter tech investment in the UK. While sanctions against hostile state actors have legitimate aims, this approach is crude and prone to mission creep, with analogous powers inevitably being demanded by other regulatory agendas. Furthermore, the definition of 'designated person' is expansive and could capture legitimate actors. The opportunity cost of driving business from the UK to less restrictive jurisdictions (New York, Singapore, Dubai) undermines both the regulatory intent and London's competitive position as a global tech hub.

The Food Information (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022 amend the Food Information Regulations 2014 to implement 'Natasha's Law', requiring food business operators selling prepacked for direct sale foods to provide full ingredient lists and allergen information directly on the package or attached label. The regulations apply to foods offered to final consumers or mass caterers (not via distance communication) and include offences for non-compliance.

While this regulation adds compliance costs for food businesses, these requirements address a genuine market failure: severe information asymmetry between food sellers and consumers with life-threatening allergies. Without mandatory disclosure, allergic consumers cannot make informed purchases, and transaction costs prevent voluntary market solutions. Unlike many EU-era regulations that impose bureaucratic burdens without corresponding benefits, allergen labeling serves a clear protective function—the tragic death of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse demonstrated this. The regulation does not restrict what foods can be sold, merely ensures ingredient information reaches those whose health depends on it.

These Regulations amend Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2072 (retained EU law on plant health protective measures) by modifying Annex 7, Part A, entry 57 of the phytosanitary import conditions table. The amendment removes 'for planting' from the first column and deletes paragraph (c) from the third column. This is a technical correction to retained EU plant health legislation.

This is a minor technical amendment to retained EU phytosanitary legislation — 1,207 words of regulatory text to make a trivial two-part correction to a table entry. Such granular amendments to retained EU law exemplify the problem: thousands of technical modifications accumulated over decades without democratic scrutiny by the UK Parliament. While plant health protections have legitimate purposes, this amendment demonstrates how the retained EU regulatory architecture continues to be amended in piecemeal fashion rather than being reviewed holistically. The regulation adds nothing to actual phytosanitary protection — it merely clarifies existing text — but maintains the bureaucratic structure of EU-derived law. Parliament should repeal the primary retained regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/2031) and replace it with a streamlined, purpose-built British plant health framework subject to regular democratic review, rather than perpetuating this inherited EU text with its 100+ pages of annexes and tables.

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These Regulations provided income tax exemptions for non-UK resident accredited persons (players, officials, contractors, broadcast personnel) performing duties connected to the Finalissima football match between Italy and Argentina at Wembley Stadium from 28 May to 2 June 2022. The exemption covered employment income and trade/profession profits, applied only during that specific period, and required recipients to be non-UK resident for tax year 2022-23 (or in the overseas part of a split year).

This regulation is time-limited, applying only to a single event that has already passed (June 2022). It serves no ongoing purpose and clutters the statute book. As a targeted tax exemption for specific event workers, it creates distortions by preferentially treating non-resident workers over UK residents performing identical duties, while adding complexity to the tax code. Such exemptions effectively subsidize event organizers' labor costs and represent regulatory intervention in the labor market that cannot be justified on efficiency grounds.

These Regulations provide income tax exemptions for accredited persons (officials, contractors, and employees of UEFA, national football associations, and broadcast/media organizations) involved in the UEFA Women's EURO 2022 finals held in England. The exemption applies to income earned from relevant activities performed between 1st July and 6th August 2022, but only for non-UK residents (or UK residents in split years).

Targeted tax breaks for specific events represent government picking winners and distort market competition. This exemption grants preferential fiscal treatment to one event's participants while ordinary workers receive no such relief, creating unfair advantage. Such exemptions set a precedent for rent-seeking where event organizers lobby for special treatment rather than competing on equal terms. The UK's tax system should treat similar activities uniformly rather than carving out exemptions for politically favored sporting events.

This Order amends the Export Control Order 2008 to add Article 12A, a military end-use control that prohibits exporting dual-use goods, software or technology (not specified in Annex I of the dual-use Regulation) when the Secretary of State informs a person that items may be intended for military use by embargoed destinations, countries under UN/OSCE arms embargoes, or their associated entities. Article 12B provides narrow exceptions for medical goods and publicly available consumer items. The Order creates criminal offences with arrest powers for contravention, amends related provisions in articles 18, 34, 40, 41, and 42N, and modifies Schedule 4 to add China (PRC), Hong Kong, and Macao to Part 2 destinations.

This Order grants the Secretary of State discretionary power to prohibit exports based on suspicion ('may be intended') rather than evidence, creating criminal liability for exporters who may have no knowledge of improper end-use. The broad definition of 'relevant entity' encompasses police and security services of embargoed countries, ensnaring legitimate trade. While medical and consumer goods exceptions exist, many commercial transactions fall outside these narrow carve-outs. The criminalisation of conduct based on government suspicion rather than actual intent disproportionately burdens trade and could drive business to less regulated jurisdictions, undermining both the competitiveness of British exporters and the regulatory objective. The Regulation's reliance on ex post government notification rather than a transparent licensing system creates uncertainty without proportionate benefit.

This Order establishes a statutory levy on employers in the construction industry to fund the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB). It sets out three levy periods (2022, early 2023, early 2024), defines assessment calculations based on 0.35% of emoluments plus 1.25% of contract payments, provides exemptions for employers with payroll under £120,000 and 50% reduction for those between £120,000-£400,000, and establishes assessment, appeal, and payment procedures administered by the Board.

While this levy imposes costs on construction employers, deleting it would worsen Britain's chronic construction skills shortage. The CITB addresses a genuine market failure: without mandatory levy collection, individual employers underinvest in training because they cannot capture the full returns—their trained workers get poached by competitors who free-ride. This creates systematic underinvestment in a sector already suffering acute skills gaps. Voluntary alternatives have consistently failed in this industry. The exemptions for small employers (£120,000 threshold) appropriately limit burden on smaller firms. Without such a mechanism, Britain's construction productivity gap—already behind comparable economies—would widen further, increasing housing costs and infrastructure expenses for all Britons.

These Regulations grant income tax exemptions to accredited persons performing activities connected to the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games. They define 'accredited person' broadly to include employees, officials, contractors, and competitors from Commonwealth Games Associations, the Organising Committee, and broadcast/commercial/media organisations. The exemption applies to employment income and trading profits during the period 1st July to 11th August 2022, provided the person is non-UK resident for tax year 2022-23 (or is UK resident but in a split year with the activity performed during the overseas part). Section 966 of ITA 2007 (obligation to deduct income tax) is disapplied for exempt payments.

This regulation represents arbitrary tax discrimination that distorts labour market decisions and creates unequal treatment between workers based on their connection to a specific sporting event. It picks winners and losers in the tax system — an accredited cleaner at the Games pays no tax on that income while an identical cleaner at a nearby hotel pays full tax. Such event-specific tax expenditures set a dangerous precedent of granting preferential treatment based on political connection rather than neutral principle, and add complexity to an already overburdened tax code. The Commonwealth Games would have proceeded without this subsidy; the exemption primarily serves to deepen rather than solve the post-Brexit regulatory tangle by layering additional nation-specific interventions onto the tax system.

Amendment Regulations 2022 to the Armed Forces (Service Complaints) Regulations 2015. They clarify the role of the 'specified officer' who decides complaint admissibility, require impartial officers where conflicts exist, specify what information complainants must provide, expand appeal grounds to include procedural error, factual error, and new evidence, define 'new evidence', and set two-week appeal deadlines with provisions for late appeals.

These amendments improve procedural fairness for service personnel making complaints. They prevent implicated officers from adjudicating complaints, establish clear appeal grounds (procedural error, factual error, new evidence), and create reasonable deadlines. While administrative, these protections are essential for maintaining morale and discipline in the armed forces, and the changes represent streamlining rather than expansion of regulatory burden.