Browse regulations

These Regulations amend three EU Exit sanctions regulations (Iran, Venezuela, and Burma) with technical corrections, definitional clarifications, and new substantive provisions including: expanded prohibitions on military-related activities for Venezuela, a new Chapter 2A on dual-use goods/technology for Burma, corrections to cross-references, and clarifications to existing prohibitions. The amendments primarily address post-Brexit inconsistencies, close perceived loopholes, and refine the scope of existing sanctions.

While Better Britain generally opposes sanctions as government restrictions on voluntary trade, these amendments are primarily technical corrections and definitional clarifications to an existing sanctions framework that Parliament has already enacted. The changes largely clarify existing prohibitions rather than materially expand restrictions, correct cross-reference errors that could cause unintended enforcement, and add precision to prohibitions. Deleting this instrument would leave in place the underlying flawed regulations while removing important clarifications that actually help businesses understand their compliance obligations. The foreign policy rationale for these sanctions regimes (human rights, regional stability) provides a defensible basis that, while imperfect, represents legitimate governmental function that Britons through Parliament have sanctioned.

Technical amendments package updating post-Brexit sanctions regulations (North Korea, Congo, South Sudan, Iran, ISIL/Al-Qaida, Counter-Terrorism) to replace EU references with UK-specific terminology (exit day→IP completion day, Harmonized System→Goods Classification Table), correct cross-references and citations, fix grammatical errors, clarify definitions, and revoke 18 superseded EU-derived statutory instruments. Part of the Retained EU Law programme.

These are technical corrections that improve legal clarity without expanding regulatory scope. Deleting them would reintroduce incorrect cross-references, outdated EU terminology, and citation errors that could cause confusion and compliance uncertainty. The revocation of 18 superseded EU orders reduces regulatory clutter. While sanctions policy itself may be questionable, this instrument merely corrects and clarifies existing law, making it easier to navigate—consistent with the goal of reducing regulatory burden through clarity rather than complexity.

The General Osteopathic Council (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Rules Order of Council 2020 — a COVID-19 pandemic-era amendment to the GOsC's regulatory rules, made in July 2020, approving temporary modifications to osteopathic practice requirements during the public health emergency.

Pandemic emergency measures that were designed for a specific, time-limited crisis should not persist indefinitely. This Order approved coronavirus-related regulatory adjustments for osteopaths that, if still necessary, should be incorporated into permanent rules through proper democratic scrutiny rather than remaining under an emergency amendment framework. Retaining COVID-era regulatory infrastructure normalizes emergency powers and removes the incentive to properly review which pandemic adaptations should become permanent, which should be discarded, and which should be restored to pre-pandemic status.

The Cyber (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 implement a sanctions regime under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 to prevent relevant cyber activity. They establish: designation of persons involved in cyber-attacks; asset freezes on designated persons; director disqualification sanctions; immigration restrictions; and criminal offences (up to 7 years imprisonment) for circumventing prohibitions or dealing with designated persons' funds. The regulations apply extraterritorially to UK persons worldwide and cover activities including information system interference, data interference, and unauthorized access to information systems.

This sanctions regime creates substantial compliance costs for financial institutions and businesses who must screen for designated persons, while the broad definition of 'relevant cyber activity' captures legitimate activities including security research and ordinary IT administration. The 'urgent procedure' allows designation based on foreign law (US, EU, Australia, Canada) without independent UK determination of wrongdoing. Criminal offences for 'enabling or facilitating' cyber activity are so broad they could chill legitimate defensive security work. The extraterritorial reach to UK persons worldwide creates duplicative obligations where foreign sanctions already apply. These costs fall disproportionately on the City of London and UK businesses while achieving questionable incremental benefit over existing criminal law and international cooperation mechanisms.

This coronavirus amendment to the Education (Pupil Information) Regulations 2005 temporarily modifies reporting requirements for the 2019/20 school year. It exempts schools from including attendance records, key stage performance data, and comparative information in head teachers' annual reports for that specific year, using 2018/19 data as the comparator instead. The amendments apply only to the COVID-disrupted 2019/20 academic year.

This regulation reduces regulatory burden rather than adding to it. The 2019/20 school year was unprecedentedly disrupted by COVID-19, making standard attendance and key stage reporting metrics meaningless and unfairly penalising schools for factors outside their control. Rather than imposing compliance costs for data that cannot be meaningfully compared, this amendment temporarily streamlines requirements. Schools are not being freed from accountability but from producing misleading statistics. Without this amendment, schools would expend resources compiling reports that convey false impressions of performance. This is a targeted, temporary adjustment that benefits schools and parents alike by avoiding nonsensical comparisons.

Technical amendment regulations making three sets of changes: (1) Social Fund Cold Weather Payments - replacing 'station' with 'site' terminology throughout and defining 'site' as a Met Office accredited location; (2) Social Fund Maternity and Funeral Expenses - changing one 'or' to 'and' in burial payment conditions; (3) Social Security Claims and Payments - adding social fund funeral payments, maternity expenses, and maternity allowance to lists permitting electronic claims, electronic death notifications, and electronic communication

These are minor technical amendments that provide no substantive policy rationale. The core social fund and cold weather payment schemes remain intact, but these amendments merely tinker with administrative procedures and terminology without justification. The change from 'station' to 'site' is arbitrary - a station was presumably already a Met Office site. The expansion of electronic claims to social fund payments adds compliance burden without clear benefit to recipients. No evidence these changes improve outcomes for claimants or reduce costs to the taxpayer. Regulations should be substantive and purposeful, not housekeeping exercises that accumulate without review.

Brexit amendment to the Environment (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, inserting EU environmental directives (waste, water, air quality, chemicals, energy efficiency) into retained EU law and limiting certain provisions to England and Wales only. Technical fix to preserve EU environmental standards post-Brexit by designating them as applicable law.

This amendment perpetuates the problem it claims to solve. Rather than seizing post-Brexit regulatory independence, it locks in 35+ EU environmental directives wholesale without parliamentary scrutiny. The regulations preserve the substance of EU environmental law while removing democratic accountability — Britons cannot vote to change these rules since they are now domestic law but retain their EU-origin character. The undifferentiated gold-plating inherent in EU directives (never reviewed by Parliament, inherited from technocratic process) should have been subject to comprehensive review and selective replacement with less burdensome alternatives. A free-trading, dynamic Britain should not maintain, unchanged, a regulatory corpus designed for a political union that we have left.

The General Chiropractic Council (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Rules Order of Council 2020 (SI 2020/719) is a COVID-19 emergency amendment to professional chiropractic regulation, made under emergency powers and approved by the Privy Council in July 2020. The provided excerpt contains only the citation clause and approval statement, without the substantive rule amendments.

The provided text is merely the title page and approval clause—insufficient to assess the actual regulatory provisions. However, based on the nature of this instrument: (1) COVID emergency regulations were enacted with minimal parliamentary scrutiny under expedited procedures; (2) professional regulatory bodies like the GCC exist to restrict competition through licensing barriers, raising costs for practitioners and consumers; (3) pandemic-era rules often introduced controls that persisted beyond their emergency justification; (4) without the substantive text, but given this is a professional health regulator's pandemic amendments, the default presumption should be deletion. The actual text must be reviewed to confirm whether it restricts practice, adds compliance burdens, or merely replicates EU-era rules that should be swept away post-Brexit.

The Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 establish a UK autonomous sanctions regime targeting persons involved in undermining the sovereignty, territorial integrity, peace, stability or constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or those obstructing implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement (GFAP). The regulations provide for: designation of involved persons by the Secretary of State; asset freezes and prohibitions on making funds or economic resources available to designated persons; director disqualification sanctions; immigration exclusions; and a Treasury licensing regime for exceptions.

Sanctions are a form of economic protectionism that contradicts Britain's historic role as a champion of free trade. These regulations restrict the freedom of British financial institutions and individuals to transact with designated persons, adding regulatory compliance burdens that could drive financial activity to less restrictive jurisdictions. While the stated purposes (peace, stability, respect for international law) are legitimate, similar outcomes could be achieved through diplomatic channels, travel restrictions, or targeted judicial measures rather than broad asset-freeze prohibitions that impede commerce. Post-Brexit Britain should be removing such controls, not creating new ones.

These Regulations implement enforcement mechanisms for EU Regulation 2019/1150 on fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services. They allow business users to sue platform providers for breaches of terms/conditions, restrictions, and contractual terms, and allow qualifying organizations to bring proceedings against platforms for violations including ranking, data access, and complaint-handling obligations. Courts can grant injunctions, require corrective statements, and publish orders.

This regulation imposes enforcement costs and compliance burdens on online platforms without clear benefit. It is EU-derived legislation retained wholesale after Brexit that was never properly scrutinized by Parliament. Creating private rights of action against platforms, mandatory publication of corrective statements, and injunctive relief creates regulatory costs that are passed to consumers and discourages platform investment. The regulation paternalistically assumes platforms will exploit business users, yet competitive markets naturally discipline bad behavior. Instead of layers of regulation, business users can negotiate contracts or exit to competitors — true market discipline.

The Nicaragua (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 implement autonomous UK sanctions against Nicaragua under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. The regulations establish: designation of persons involved in human rights violations or undermining democracy; asset-freeze prohibitions preventing dealing with or making funds/economic resources available to designated persons; director disqualification sanctions; immigration exclusions for designated persons; and licensing exceptions for necessary payments. The stated purposes are to encourage the Government of Nicaragua to respect democratic principles, human rights, and the rule of law.

Sanctions regimes are inherently blunt instruments that impose significant compliance costs on UK financial institutions and businesses without clear evidence of achieving their stated foreign policy objectives. The regulation's extraterritorial reach—applying to UK persons conduct outside the UK—curtails their commercial freedom globally. These sanctions were inherited wholesale from the EU (Council Regulation 2019/1716) without democratic scrutiny, representing exactly the type of unexamined retained EU law that post-Brexit regulatory independence should address. While human rights concerns in Nicaragua are legitimate, there is no demonstrated benefit to ordinary Britons that outweighs the compliance burdens and restriction of commercial freedom imposed by this regime, and historical evidence suggests such targeted sanctions rarely alter the behavior of sovereign governments.

The Universal Credit (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2020 make technical adjustments to Universal Credit calculation rules (exceptions related to earnings and National Minimum Wage references) and impose new information-reporting obligations on landlords regarding housing costs in Universal Credit awards, requiring them to supply information to the Secretary of State within one month.

While the landlord information requirement imposes a minor compliance obligation, deleting this regulation would create administrative confusion in Universal Credit calculations and leave gaps in the government's ability to verify housing cost claims. The technical amendments to earnings exceptions appear to correct errors in the original drafting. Britons receiving Universal Credit would be worse off from potential benefit miscalculation and administrative dysfunction if this were deleted.

The Lebanon (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) concerning restrictive measures against Lebanon. The regulations prohibit exports, supply, delivery, transfer, and making available of military goods and technology to Lebanon or persons connected with Lebanon; provision of related technical assistance, financial services, and brokering services; and making funds available to connected persons. They establish a licensing regime administered by the Secretary of State, create criminal offences with penalties up to 10 years imprisonment, and include information sharing provisions with UK and foreign authorities.

These regulations implement binding UN Security Council obligations under Resolution 1701, which the UK cannot lawfully ignore as a UN member state. The regulations explicitly preserve compatibility with UN obligations and cannot be removed without breaching international law. Unlike gold-plated EU directives that imposed costs without corresponding benefits, these sanctions are required by treaty. While sanctions inherently restrict trade, the licensing system provides flexibility for legitimate transactions, and the national security exception in regulation 16 allows appropriate waivers. Deleting this regulation would leave the UK in breach of its international obligations and exposed to UN Security Council enforcement action.

Temporary COVID-19 regulations amending the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013 and Certification of Enforcement Agents Regulations 2014. Key changes: extending the 'emergency period' to end 23rd August 2020, removing 'calendar' from time limit wording, increasing the minimum net unpaid rent threshold for CRAR from 90 to 189 days, and extending enforcement agent certificate durations during the emergency period. All provisions were explicitly time-limited to the coronavirus emergency period.

Entirely obsolete pandemic-era legislation. The emergency period defined in these Regulations ended on 23rd August 2020 — over five years ago. All substantive provisions were explicitly temporary measures tied to a defined historical emergency period that has long passed. The regulations have no remaining legal effect and serve only to clutter the statute book with expired legislation. Keeping expired regulations creates confusion and perpetuates the misconception that these COVID-19 easements remain in force.

These Regulations exempt lump sum death benefit payments made under the NHS Coronavirus Life Assurance schemes (England and Wales) from income tax under Part 6 of ITEPA 2003. They define prescribed benefits for the 2020-21 tax year onwards, ensuring payments pursuant to the two named NHS life assurance schemes are treated as excluded benefits rather than taxable employment-related payments.

These regulations represent unnecessary intervention in private contractual arrangements. The life assurance schemes were voluntary arrangements that could have included appropriate tax treatment in their design. By carving out specific schemes from general taxation rules, this regulation creates complexity and preferential treatment for particular employers and employees. Tax treatment of death benefits should be addressed through general principles in primary legislation, not through case-by-case statutory instruments. The presence of this regulation demonstrates how EU-derived and pandemic-era legislation has proliferated without proper parliamentary scrutiny, adding layers to an already complex tax code that distort private decision-making.