Browse regulations

The Neonatal Care Leave and Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 2025 create a new statutory right to up to 12 weeks of neonatal care leave for employees caring for newborns receiving neonatal care. The regulations establish entitlement conditions (parents, adopters, intended parents, partners), notice requirements, tiered leave periods (tier 1 during/around neonatal care, tier 2 after), protection from detriment, unfair dismissal provisions, redundancy safeguards during protected periods, and return-to-work rights. They amend existing maternity/paternity/adoption leave regulations to accommodate parental order cases.

Without this regulation, employees with critically ill newborns in intensive care would have no statutory job protection while caring for their child—employers could dismiss them at will during a period of acute family vulnerability. The leave is capped at 12 weeks and limited to those with genuine caregiving responsibility, making it narrowly targeted. While the regulation imposes some compliance costs, these are proportionate to the harm prevented: an employee facing a newborn fighting for survival should not also face existential job insecurity. The redundancy protections and return-to-work provisions prevent the most severe exploitation while preserving business flexibility through alternative vacancy provisions. Deletion would leave the most vulnerable workers in the labour market entirely exposed to contractual terms dictated by employers with superior bargaining power.

These Regulations implement statutory neonatal care pay (SNCP) under Part 12ZE of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. They define eligibility criteria for parents (birth parents, adopters, intended parents, partners) whose newborns require neonatal care, establishing a two-tier payment structure: Tier 1 (full pay) covering the neonatal care period plus 7 days after, and Tier 2 (reduced statutory rate) for the remainder of the 68-week qualifying period. The Regulations include provisions for multiple births, death of a child, adoption breakdown, employment continuity requirements (26 weeks), notice periods, and employer liability rules. Maximum entitlement is 12 weeks of SNCP.

Without this regulation, parents of newborns requiring neonatal care would face loss of income during extended hospital stays that can last weeks or months—a genuine hardship that would leave Britons significantly worse off. While employers bear some cost, this is consistent with established statutory pay schemes (maternity, paternity, adoption pay) and the benefit is targeted at employees with 26 weeks continuous employment. The regulation does not represent EU-derived law or gold-plating; it is domestic legislation addressing a real policy gap. Private alternatives would suffer from adverse selection and prohibitively high premiums for this unpredictable, high-cost event. Deletion would harm the very families this legislation exists to protect.

This Order grants an individual exemption from the transmission licence requirement under section 4(1)(b) of the Electricity Act 1989 to Spiorad na Mara Limited for electricity transmission over the dedicated system connecting their offshore wind generating station (located 5-13km off the Isle of Lewis coast) to the onshore substation. The exemption is indefinite, commencing when the station first generates electricity.

Without this exemption, Spiorad na Mara's offshore wind project could not legally transmit electricity, effectively blocking a renewable energy development that will contribute to Scotland's and the UK's clean energy targets. Dedicated point-to-point transmission systems serving specific offshore generation stations are inherently local and non-competitive - requiring a full transmission licence for such infrastructure would be disproportionate and impractical. The exemption does not remove safety, environmental, or consumer protections; the project remains subject to all applicable regulations. Deleting this would harm investment in Scottish renewable energy infrastructure with no corresponding regulatory benefit.

Consequential amendments regulations that amend various legislative provisions to reflect the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act 2024), with staggered commencement dates tied to the main Act's implementation.

These regulations are purely consequential and technical in nature — they merely tidy up existing legislation to reflect the DMCC Act 2024. They impose no independent regulatory burden, but by retaining them, we implicitly entrench the DMCC Act 2024's framework of tech giant regulation, expanded Competition and Markets Authority powers, and new consumer protection regimes. The primary Act represents exactly the kind of centralizing, interventionist regulation that suppresses market competition — particularly the 'strategic market status' regime for digital platforms, which creates regulatory monopolies and barriers to entry. These consequential amendments should be deleted alongside any repeal of the DMCC Act 2024 itself.

The Immigration (Biometric Information etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 amend the Immigration (Provision of Physical Data) Regulations 2006 and Immigration (Biometric Registration) Regulations 2008. Key changes include: extending biometric data collection requirements to 'entrants' (not just applicants); adding provisions for electronic/automated biometric collection; allowing biometric information recording on entry-related documents; enabling refusal or cancellation of leave for entrants who fail to provide biometrics; adding fingerprints of immigration bail violators to retention schedules; introducing share code restrictions for non-compliance; and extending provisions to Channel Tunnel juxtaposed controls.

This amendment expands coercive biometric collection powers with insufficient justification. The new 'entrant' provisions subject arriving travellers to mandatory biometric requirements on pain of refused entry or cancelled leave with minimal procedural protections. The share code restriction (preventing non-compliant individuals from generating access codes to their own immigration status) creates inappropriate coercion mechanisms. While some modernisations (electronic collection) are administratively convenient, the overall direction increases state power over individuals through automated data capture and retention of bail-violator fingerprints. These powers reflect institutional expansion rather than liberty-preserving reform. A regulatory framework that treats arriving travellers as presumptively non-compliant subjects to be monitored and sanctioned should not be retained as a post-Brexit reform priority.

These Regulations amend the Relief for Creative Industries (Additional Information Requirements and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2024, which govern additional information requirements for creative industry tax reliefs under Parts 14A to 15E of the Corporation Tax Act 2009. The amendments add definitions for 'tax adviser' and 'visual effects vendor', modify claim information requirements, and introduce new disclosure requirements for visual effects expenditure credits.

These amendments add compliance burdens and reporting requirements that increase costs for creative industries without commensurate benefit. The visual effects vendor definition extends regulatory reporting into supply chains, creating additional administrative overhead. While the underlying tax reliefs represent market distortion through corporate welfare, these information requirements compound that distortion by raising compliance costs that disproportionately burden smaller producers. The regulation perpetuates a system of government-managed industrial policy for the creative sector, which this agency seeks to dismantle rather than refine.

Amends statutory interest rates used in tax and duty contexts across multiple regulations (1989, 1998, 2011, 2018) by increasing the specified percentages in formulas (generally from 2.5% to 4%, and 2% to 3.5% for customs duty). These rates apply to late payment interest, overpayment refunds, and related tax calculations.

Statutory interest rate mandates are government price-fixing that distorts the natural consequences of late payment. The specific percentages (4%, 2.5%, 3.5%) are arbitrary government choices rather than market-determined rates. While these rates compensate the Treasury for delayed payment, they also punish businesses experiencing temporary cash flow difficulties, potentially forcing viable firms into distress. A common law right to claim reasonable damages for late payment would better serve both parties without artificial rate-fixing. The regulation adds compliance complexity with its multiple varying percentages across different tax instruments.

Temporary regulation modifying the Universal Credit etc (Claims and Payments) Regulations 2013 to insert child support maintenance deductions into Schedule 6's deduction framework, omit paragraph (h), and replace 'housing costs' with child support deductions in paragraph 5(4). Applies for one year from 30th April 2025 to 30th April 2026.

This regulation extends the government's machinery of benefit deductions to include child support maintenance, creating a new category of involuntary third-party payments from benefits. While child support is a legitimate obligation, automatic government-ordered deductions from benefits represent paternalistic intervention that removes individual autonomy over personal finances. Such mandates assume the state is better positioned than individuals to allocate funds, discouraging voluntary compliance and personal financial responsibility. The deduction priority system adds administrative complexity and compliance costs. If child support collection is the goal, voluntary compliance mechanisms or targeted voluntary arrangements would better respect individual liberty while achieving the same outcome. Britons would be better served by a system that encourages responsible voluntary agreements rather than mandatory state-directed deductions from already-modest benefit payments.

The Cattewater Harbour Revision Order 2025 amends and consolidates previous harbour orders (1915-2005) for Cattewater Harbour in Plymouth. It provides definitions, extends harbour limits to include harbour premises, establishes a framework for general directions (navigation safety, vessel operations, public use) and special directions by the harbour master, creates a mooring licensing regime, sets out enforcement powers including criminal offences for non-compliance with directions and unlicensed moorings, and modifies borrowing powers and governance procedures for the Commissioners.

Britons would be worse off if this Order were deleted because harbour management requires a clear legal framework and the 2005 Order (with its regulatory powers) would remain in force regardless. While this Order contains regulatory costs—particularly criminal penalties for failing to comply with directions and mooring licensing requirements—these are necessary instruments for managing a functioning harbour. The alternative would be operating under older, less clearly drafted regulations with more ambiguous authority. The Order's consultation requirements, while burdensome, are proportionate procedural safeguards for a minor local harbour, and do not represent the kind of economy-wide regulatory burden characteristic of EU-derived legislation being reviewed under this programme. Maritime safety and navigation management necessarily involve some regulatory intervention that cannot be achieved through private coordination alone.

This Order amends the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust Establishment Order 2000 to: (1) add 'Teaching' to the trust's name reflecting its university affiliation, (2) set board composition at 5 executive and 6 non-executive directors with one non-executive from University of Hertfordshire, (3) simplify the trust's functions to providing goods and services for the health service, (4) set accounting date as 31st March, and (5) revoke obsolete provisions regarding functions before operational date.

This amendment Order makes modest, efficiency-improving changes to an NHS Trust establishment instrument that would not be achievable through deletion. It reduces regulatory prescription by simplifying the trust's functions, removes obsolete articles (6 and 7) that served only transitory purposes from 2000, and formalises the teaching role that already exists in practice. Deleting this would leave the original 2000 Order in force with outdated governance structures, anachronistic transitional provisions, and a name that no longer reflects the trust's actual functions. While this Order does not address broader NHS monopoly issues, it is a routine administrative amendment that neither harms nor helps competition in healthcare.

The Sanctions (EU Exit) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2025 amend multiple UK sanctions regulations (Venezuela, DPRK, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and others) to introduce new procedural safeguards for designating persons under sanctions. They establish two procedures: a standard procedure requiring 'reasonable grounds to suspect' the person is an involved person, and an urgent procedure allowing temporary designation based on alignment with US/EU/Australia/Canada sanctions (conditions B and C) that expires after 56 days unless confirmed. The regulations also enhance notification and statement of reasons requirements.

These regulations preserve and formalize a system of economic sanctions that restricts trade and freezes assets based on executive determination. The 'urgent procedure' allows UK designations to follow foreign governments (US, EU, Australia, Canada) rather than independent British assessment of UK interests. While procedural safeguards are added (evidence thresholds, time limits, statement of reasons), the fundamental framework remains a government control mechanism that restricts voluntary economic activity, creates legal uncertainty for businesses, and delegates UK foreign policy to foreign governments. These regulations perpetuate the inherited EU sanctions framework without sufficient justification for state intervention in the economy.

Statutory instrument authorizing Engineering College of Technology Limited (company 13664803) to grant taught awards up to master's level in engineering and technology subjects for a fixed term (1 April 2025 to 1 April 2029), limited to enrolled students only.

This Order grants a privileged monopoly position to a single specific company, allowing it alone to award degrees in contravention of open market principles. The power to award degrees should not be a government-conferred privilege restricted to one institution — it should flow from institutional capability and market competition. Such case-by-case legislative authorisations create barriers to entry, stifle competition in higher education, and represent exactly the kind of picking-winners government intervention that Adam Smith warned against. The fixed 4-year term and restrictive enrollment requirement further codify artificial limitations. Britons would benefit from a liberalised regime where any qualified institution meeting transparent standards could offer degree programmes without needing bespoke primary legislation.

Appointed Day regulations that bring Schedule 26 of the Finance Act 2021 into force solely for the purpose of enabling regulations to be made under paragraphs 11 and 22(4) relating to penalty figures. This is a purely administrative procedural instrument with no substantive regulatory content.

This is a skeletal enabling instrument with no independent regulatory effect — it merely appoints a commencement day for provisions already enacted in the Finance Act 2021. The actual penalty regime remains governed by that primary legislation and any substantive regulations made thereunder. As a procedural step that neither creates obligations nor removes them, it adds bureaucratic machinery without regulatory substance. The regulations it 'enables' are not yet visible, making scrutiny impossible. The retained EU law and gold-plating concerns apply to substantive rules, not to procedural commencement orders. If the underlying penalty provisions are sound, they need no commencement facilitation; if they are unsound, this instrument does nothing to remedy them.

Amends the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 to increase statutory minimum wage rates from April 2025: the national living wage rises from £11.44 to £12.21 per hour; the 21-24 year old rate rises from £8.60 to £10.00; and the 18-20 year old and apprentice rates both rise from £6.40 to £7.55 per hour; accommodation offset rate increases from £9.99 to £10.66 per day.

Minimum wage regulations are price floors that reduce employment opportunities for young, low-skilled, and entry-level workers who would voluntarily accept lower wages in exchange for gaining experience. The workers who remain employed at higher rates benefit, but those who cannot find jobs or have hours reduced bear the cost. These regulations prevent mutually beneficial labor agreements, disproportionately harm small businesses in hospitality and retail, accelerate automation adoption, and reduce training opportunities. Competition for workers in a functioning labor market already drives wages toward productivity levels without requiring government-mandated floors. The desired outcome of higher wages for low earners is better achieved through policies that increase their productivity and bargaining power rather than price controls that predictably reduce employment for the most vulnerable workers.

These Regulations amend EU-derived drivers' hours and tachograph rules for post-Brexit UK. Key changes include: clarifying the regulation's application to UK-only carriage; creating a new Article 2(2A) for UK-EU cross-border transport; redefining 'special regular passenger services' to include worker and student transport; extending record-keeping from 28 to 56 days for vehicles under Article 2(2A); and removing certain infringement categories from Annex I.

This regulation perpetuates EU-derived road transport rules without fundamental reform. While some post-Brexit coordination with EU rules is pragmatic for cross-border operations, the 56-day record-keeping extension (Article 36(3)) adds administrative burden beyond the original EU standard without evidence of corresponding safety benefit. The regulation also retains complex definitions and requirements that impose compliance costs on transport operators, particularly small businesses and new market entrants. A genuinely independent British regulatory framework should be designed based on UK-specific evidence and cost-benefit analysis rather than inherited EU rules adopted wholesale.