Browse regulations

Amendment to Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) Regulations 2020, removing Aruba, France, Malta, Monaco, The Netherlands, and Turks and Caicos Islands from quarantine exemption lists (Schedule A1) and adding six sporting events to Schedule 3 (specified competitions), with transitional provisions for arrivals between 10th July and 15th August 2020.

COVID-era international travel restrictions represent extreme government control over personal liberty and economic activity. The quarantine regime devastated aviation, tourism, and hospitality sectors with no credible evidence that blanket travel bans were more effective than targeted health measures. These regulations imposed massive unseen costs: airline bankruptcies, tourism industry collapse, family separation, and permanent damage to UK connectivity. The arbitrary country exemption system created perverse incentives and unequal treatment without scientific basis—COVID does not respect national borders. Government should not have permanent power to restrict citizens' movement based on ministerial discretion. This regulation, and the principal Regulations it amends, should be deleted in their entirety as part of a systematic repeal of COVID-era travel controls.

Amends the Power to Award Degrees etc. (BPP University Limited) Order of Council 2013 to confirm BPP University Limited's competence to grant awards under section 76(2)(a) of the Education Reform Act 1988, effective 1 September 2020.

This regulation represents state-granted monopoly privilege in higher education. Degree-awarding authority is a regulatory barrier that restricts competition in the education sector, limiting student choice and innovation. A truly dynamic free-trading nation would allow institutions to compete on reputation and quality rather than requiring government permission to award degrees. Removing this regulation would promote educational competition and reduce state intervention in academic commerce.

Amends the Power to Award Degrees etc. (The Ashridge (Bonar Law Memorial) Trust) Order of Council 2014 to extend degree-awarding authority for Ashridge (Bonar Law Memorial) Trust for a fixed seven-year term (1st September 2014 to 31st August 2021). Grants a statutory monopoly on degree-awarding powers to a specific institution.

Grants a legally enforced monopoly on degree-awarding powers to a single institution, restricting competition in higher education. Britons are worse off because this regulation prevents other providers from offering recognised credentials, limits student choice, and protects Ashridge from competition — all without evidence that this monopoly arrangement produces better educational outcomes than market competition would. Employers and students can evaluate credentials through reputation and demonstrated competence without government-mandated monopolies.

Amends the Power to Award Degrees etc. (Warwickshire College) Order of Council 2014 to confirm Warwickshire College's competence to grant awards for a fixed seven-year term (1 September 2014 to 31 August 2021), coming into force 1 September 2020.

This Order grants a state-enforced monopoly privilege to a single institution, requiring bureaucratic renewal every seven years via Order of Council. Degree-awarding authority is itself a restriction on free competition in higher education — institutions should not need government permission to award credentials based on their academic standards. The fixed-term structure demonstrates this is artificial regulatory monopoly, not a natural market function. Such micro-regulations governing specific institutional powers exemplify the bureaucratic burden that suppresses educational competition and innovation.

This Order grants Arden University Limited (a private higher education institution) the competence to award taught degrees under section 42(2)(a) of the relevant Act, and authorizes the university to franchise this power to other institutions. It came into force on 1 September 2020.

Degree-awarding powers represent state-granted monopoly privileges that restrict competition in higher education. This Order creates barriers to entry by requiring government authorization before any institution can grant degrees, limiting student choice and suppressing innovative alternatives. The franchising mechanism (paragraph 3) further entrenches a hierarchical, approval-dependent model. Market mechanisms such as professional body accreditation, reputational signals, and student choice would more efficiently assure quality than arbitrary government designation of which institutions may call themselves degree-granting. Britons are worse off because this regulation perpetuates institutional monopoly at the expense of educational innovation and affordability.

These 2020 Regulations created emergency powers allowing the Secretary of State to waive or modify various NHS administrative requirements (declarations, signatures, forms, evidence) during a pandemic or serious risk to human health. They also extended pharmaceutical needs assessment deadlines to April 2022 and extended listing decision timeframes. The regulations amended eight separate sets of NHS regulations covering drugs/appliances, optical services, pharmaceutical services, and dental services.

These COVID-era emergency regulations have become obsolete - they were designed for a specific pandemic that has passed. The sweeping delegation of power to the Secretary of State to waive any declaration, signature, or evidence requirement by simple announcement, with vague language including 'potentially a serious risk to human health', creates a permanent mechanism for executive override of statutory requirements without parliamentary scrutiny. The original pandemic rationale no longer applies, and the regulations' continued existence as 'retained EU law' with no sunset clause represents the exact bureaucratic burden this agency seeks to eliminate. Deadline extensions (pharmaceutical needs assessments, listing decisions) have already passed and serve no ongoing purpose.

These Regulations implement aspects of EU Regulation 2019/1009 into UK law, designating the Secretary of State as the notifying authority for Great Britain for fertilising product conformity assessment bodies. They establish procedures for notifying, monitoring, restricting, suspending, and withdrawing conformity assessment bodies (notified bodies), and require such bodies to issue EU-type examination certificates and approval decisions before fertilising products can be made available on the market.

This regulation imposes mandatory third-party certification requirements that create significant barriers to entry for fertilising product manufacturers, particularly harmful to smaller enterprises. The 'notified body' system creates an artificial scarcity of certification providers, driving up costs without proportionate safety benefits. As retained EU law enacted wholesale without Parliamentary scrutiny, it represents exactly the bureaucratic burden that post-Brexit regulatory independence should address. Similar safety objectives could be achieved through product liability regimes, voluntary certification, or disclosure-based approaches that do not restrict market participation.

Commencement order bringing section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (video recorded cross-examination or re-examination) into force on 24 August 2020, applicable to specific Crown Court locations for proceedings where witnesses are eligible for assistance under section 16 (age or incapacity).

This is a procedural commencement order implementing a protective measure for vulnerable witnesses (children and incapacitated adults) allowing video-recorded cross-examination. Deleting it would revert to requiring vulnerable witnesses to give repeated live testimony, causing additional trauma and reducing evidence quality. The regulation achieves a legitimate public interest objective (fair access to justice for vulnerable persons) through a targeted mechanism that does not impose broader economic costs or restrict market activity.

A procedural amendment to the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 and the Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 3) Rules 2020 that extends specified court deadlines from late August 2020 to mid-September 2020, in response to coronavirus disruption.

Deleting this instrument would revert to earlier deadlines that parties were relying upon during pandemic disruption. This is a temporary, pandemic-era adjustment that reduces burden by extending time limits — it does not impose new regulatory requirements. Removing it would harm parties who planned their litigation strategy around the extended deadlines, with no corresponding benefit.

Amendment to Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) Regulations 2020 that removed Austria, Croatia, and Trinidad and Tobago from the exempt countries list, added Portugal, and added Professional Darts Corporation – Unibet Premier League to specified competitions. Included saving provisions for arrivals between July 10 and August 22, 2020, and revoked the prior amendment (No. 9).

COVID-19 international travel restrictions are obsolete and have been lifted. These regulations imposed significant costs on travelers, airlines, and the travel industry without clear evidence of public health benefit. The frequent amendments (No. 9, No. 10, etc.) demonstrate reactive, inconsistent policy-making that created uncertainty for businesses and individuals. Removing individual countries from exempt lists based on changing infection rates was arbitrary and drove inconsistent enforcement. The restrictions should be deleted entirely rather than continuously amended.

Amends the Statutory Sick Pay (General) Regulations 1982 to create a new SSP eligibility category (5G) for persons advised to stay home for up to 14 days before hospital admission following a 'pre-surgery notification'. Also inserts the definition of 'pre-surgery notification' as a written notification sent by or on behalf of certain authorised persons or registered medical practitioners.

This regulation expands SSP beyond genuine sickness into pre-procedure precautionary isolation—a purpose fundamentally different from traditional sick pay. Forcing employers to fund precautionary quarantine payments rather than treating this as a public health measure公益性 creates perverse incentives, adds employment costs that discourage hiring, and sets a dangerous precedent of converting employer liability into a general sickness insurance scheme. If isolation before surgery is genuinely necessary for public health, costs should fall on the state through general taxation, not be mandated onto individual employers as a hidden payroll tax.

The Local Government Pension Scheme (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 amend the 2013 Regulations to introduce: (1) 'deferred debt agreements' allowing exiting employers to defer exit payments and continue at secondary contribution rates; (2) new definitions for 'deferred employer'; (3) regulation 64A permitting mid-valuation revisions to contribution certificates under certain conditions; and (4) regulation 64B allowing exit payments to be spread over multiple years.

This regulation creates unnecessary complexity and market distortion in the pension system. The deferred debt agreement mechanism allows employers to avoid full exit payment obligations, effectively subsidising poorly-managed pension funds at the expense of better-run ones in the same scheme. By permitting contribution restructuring outside normal valuation cycles (regulation 64A) and spreading exit payments indefinitely (regulation 64B), the regulation removes natural market incentives for employers to properly fund their pension liabilities on time. These interventions obscure true pension costs, distort competition between scheme employers, and shift financial burden onto remaining participants. The administrative overhead of multiple certification types and actuarial reviews adds compliance costs without commensurate benefit.

Amends School Information (England) Regulations 2008 to require schools to publish on their websites: (1) the number of employees with gross annual salary ≥£100,000 in £10,000 bands, and (2) a link to the school's page on the Schools Financial Benchmarking website using its URN.

Imposes additional administrative compliance burdens on schools for marginal transparency benefit. The high-earner salary data is already accessible via the Schools Financial Benchmarking website, making this requirement largely duplicative. The disclosure requirement may also distort wage negotiations by creating public visibility constraints on executive compensation. Small schools bear disproportionate compliance costs relative to larger institutions. This exemplifies the accumulated regulatory layering on British institutions that increases operational costs without proportional benefit.

Minor technical amendment correcting a drafting error in the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020. Changes '280 metres square' to '280 square metres' in Part B, Class F.2 (Local community) of Schedule 2.

This regulation corrects an obvious clerical error in the original text. Deleting it would leave '280 metres square' (incorrect grammar/unclear) on the statute book rather than the correct '280 square metres'. While substantive planning regulations remain subject to wider review under this body's mandate, technical corrections that improve clarity without adding regulatory burden should be retained — Britons are better served by regulations that can be correctly understood.

Amends the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013 to restructure how advocates and litigators are paid in Crown Court cases. Key changes include: removing the separate 'basic fees' structure for guilty pleas and cracked trials, introducing new Table A1 with separate fee bands for cracked trials, adding new fees for 'unused material' consideration (both basic fees and hourly additional fees after 3 hours), and creating a fixed fee of £181.40 for litigators in cases sent to Crown Court. The regulations govern approximately £600 million annually in criminal legal aid expenditure.

This regulation perpetuates government price-fixing in legal services, suppressing market-determined compensation for barristers and solicitors. The complex graduated fee scheme with its 17 offense bands, multiple tables, and intricate rules for 'unused material' creates massive administrative compliance costs. Market competition for legal aid contracts would drive efficiency; instead, this regulation imposes uniform rates that benefit established firms at the expense of new entrants and distort resource allocation. The 17A/20A provisions for unused material fees exemplify regulatory mission creep—creating new fee categories that further entrench the existing system rather than enabling market provision of legal services.