Browse regulations

EU Exit amendment regulations that modify the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 and related legislation. Replaces references to European Supervisory Authorities, EEA states, and EU directives with UK-specific equivalents; substitutes 'third country' for 'EEA state' in various contexts; updates cross-references from EU legislation to UK equivalents under FSMA and the Payment Services Regulations 2017; revokes Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/1108.

This is a mechanical Brexit 'corrective' instrument that merely replaces EU institutional references with UK equivalents. It adds no substantive regulatory requirements but simply patches retained EU law to function post-Brexit. The underlying 2017 Regulations remain intact with all their compliance burdens. These technical cross-referencing amendments create ongoing compliance complexity and cost for financial institutions without addressing the fundamental issue: that thousands of inherited EU anti-money laundering laws remain on the books with no democratic scrutiny. While technically necessary for regulatory coherence, this regulation exemplifies the broader problem of unexamined retained EU law that should be subject to comprehensive review rather than piecemeal amendment.

The Crown Dependencies Customs Union (Guernsey) (EU Exit) Order 2019 establishes customs union arrangements between the United Kingdom and Guernsey for import duty purposes, giving effect to Exchange of Letters and an Arrangement set out in the Schedule. It is a post-Brexit instrument maintaining bilateral trade arrangements with this Crown Dependency.

This regulation FACILITATES rather than restricts trade between the UK and Guernsey. Unlike EU-derived regulations that impose bureaucratic burden, this bilateral customs union arrangement reduces friction and transaction costs for British businesses trading with Guernsey. Deleting it would harm UK-Guayne trade relations and create unnecessary customs barriers with a close UK partner, leaving Britons worse off through increased compliance costs and trade friction. This is not retained EU law but a bilateral coordination mechanism that addresses genuine coordination problems private markets cannot solve.

Order implementing a tax treaty with Austria providing relief from double taxation on capital gains, corporation tax, income tax and similar taxes, and establishing international tax enforcement cooperation arrangements.

Double taxation creates significant economic distortion — taxing the same income twice suppresses trade, investment, and capital mobility. This Order eliminates that barrier for UK-Austria economic activity. While the international tax enforcement provisions warrant scrutiny, the core function of preventing punitive double taxation serves free markets and Britons' economic interests. Removing it would leave cross-border traders, investors, and businesses facing genuine fiscal penalisation for engaging in international commerce.

The Crown Dependencies Customs Union (Jersey) (EU Exit) Order 2019 establishes customs union arrangements between the United Kingdom and Jersey for import duties, incorporating by reference an Exchange of Letters (Part 1 of Schedule) and an Arrangement (Part 2 of Schedule). It provides the legal framework for maintaining preferential customs treatment between the UK and this Crown Dependency post-Brexit.

While customs unions represent departures from pure free trade theory, deleting this would harm Britons by disrupting established trade arrangements with Jersey, creating uncertainty for businesses that rely on these customs arrangements, and potentially leading to worse outcomes than the imperfect status quo. The regulation maintains functional trade relations without the EU's bureaucratic overlay.

The Crown Dependencies Customs Union (Isle of Man) (EU Exit) Order 2019 implements customs union arrangements between the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man for import duty purposes, giving effect to Exchange of Letters and an Arrangement set out in the Schedule.

This Order facilitates free trade between the UK and its Crown Dependency by establishing a customs union that removes tariffs on internal trade. The Isle of Man is not an EU member state — this is a bilateral arrangement between the UK and its own territory. Deleting it would create uncertainty around the customs status of trade with the Isle of Man, potentially reintroduce tariffs on UK-Isle of Man trade, and complicate the position of a Crown Dependency that has had long-standing customs arrangements with the UK. Far from representing EU-era bureaucracy, this is precisely the kind of bilateral trade facilitation that post-Brexit Britain should pursue.

The Outer Space Act 1986 (Isle of Man) (Amendment) Order 2019 amends the 1990 Order to allow the Secretary of State to vary existing space activity licences to specify maximum liability amounts under section 10. It incorporates references to Deregulation Act 2015 amendments and provides procedural requirements for licence variations.

This Order grants discretionary power to the Secretary of State to impose liability caps on space licensees through government fiat rather than market negotiation. Such government-set liability limits distort the insurance market, create regulatory discretion vulnerable to capture, and substitute bureaucratic judgment for contractual freedom between willing parties. The unseen costs include discouraging efficient risk pricing and creating barriers to entry for smaller space operators who cannot navigate regulatory liability negotiations. A dynamic free-trading space sector requires liability terms set by market participants and insurers, not ministerial discretion.

Appoints named individuals as Her Majesty's Inspectors of Education, Children's Services and Skills, effective 14th February 2019. This is an administrative appointment order establishing the inspectorate for education and children's services.

This is merely an administrative appointment instrument for named individuals to hold existing inspectorial positions. It does not impose regulatory burdens, restrict trade, or create bureaucratic obstacles. The inspection function for education and children's services serves legitimate accountability purposes, and deleting this appointment order would simply leave the positions vacant without eliminating any regulatory framework. The cost of keeping it is essentially zero; the cost of deleting it is administrative chaos in a necessary public function.

A commencement regulation that brings Section 22 of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 (client money protection schemes: approval and designation) into force on 14th February 2019. Signed by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

This is a commencement regulation that activates a regulatory burden on letting agents without inherent market justification. Client money protection schemes add compliance costs that are ultimately passed to tenants and landlords, reducing letting agent market efficiency. The approval and designation process creates government-controlled monopolies for scheme operators. If deleted, Section 22 would not come into force on this date, delaying unnecessary regulatory intervention in the private rental market.

The Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 2019 amends the 2016 Order regarding small unmanned aircraft (drones). It removes certain exemptions and replaces articles 94A and 94B with a detailed permission regime requiring CAA or air traffic control approval for flights above 400 feet, with complex 'flight restriction zone' definitions around protected aerodromes including runway protection zones, additional boundary zones, and specific geometric parameters (5km x 1km rectangles, 2 nautical mile circles, 1km boundary lines).

This regulation imposes a labyrinthine permission regime on small unmanned aircraft operators, requiring approvals from multiple authorities (CAA, air traffic control units, flight information service units, aerodrome operators) with complex geometric zone definitions. Rather than achieving aviation safety through clear, proportionate rules, it creates regulatory barriers that suppress innovation and private sector alternatives in the drone industry. The detailed prescription of runway protection zone dimensions (5km x 1km/1.5km rectangles, 2,000ft heights, 1km boundary lines) reflects bureaucratic specificity that could be replaced with performance-based safety standards. The multi-layered permission requirements (article 94A paragraphs 2-4) impose compliance costs and uncertainty that favor established players and limit market entry, with no demonstrated safety benefit that simpler rules could not achieve.

Annual uprating regulations for National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for tax year 2019-20. Increases Class 2 small profits threshold from £6,205 to £6,365 and rate from £2.95 to £3.00. Raises Class 3 rate from £14.65 to £15.00. Updates Class 4 lower limit to £8,632 and upper limit to £50,000. Adjusts Class 1 primary/secondary thresholds, upper earnings limits, and various prescribed equivalents. Sets National Insurance Fund payment percentage at 5% for 2019-20.

This is a routine annual uprating exercise adjusting NIC thresholds for inflation — failing to update these values would create system failures, incorrect contribution levels, and administrative chaos. The thresholds are mechanically adjusted from their statutory anchors each year; deleting this would merely postpone the inevitable. While the NIC system itself may be questioned, this particular instrument is a technical necessity that prevents unintended over/under-contributions affecting millions of workers and self-employed individuals.

These Regulations amend the Financial Conglomerates and Other Financial Groups Regulations 2004 to prepare the UK's financial conglomerate supervision regime for Brexit. They replace EU references with UK-specific ones, remove references to European Supervisory Authorities, establish UK-based coordination criteria for supervising financial conglomerates, add threshold tests for identifying conglomerates, and provide for supplementary supervision, capital adequacy requirements, and risk concentration controls at the conglomerate level.

This regulation is retained EU law inherited without democratic scrutiny. While it maintains necessary supervisory structures, it perpetuates costly EU-era compliance burdens including supplementary supervision requirements, capital adequacy calculations, and intra-group transaction restrictions that add regulatory costs without clear competitive advantage. Post-Brexit, Britain should reconsider whether this detailed prescriptive regime serves UK interests or simply preserves the EU's approach to financial conglomerate regulation.

Post-Brexit statutory instrument amending UK intellectual property laws to update exhaustion of rights provisions. Replaces EU law references with 'retained EU law', adds 'United Kingdom' alongside EEA in exhaustion provisions, and introduces 'UK-EEA area' concept. Affects Registered Designs Act 1949, Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, Trade Marks Act 1994, and related semiconductor and database regulations.

This regulation perpetuates the EU's restrictive exhaustion of rights regime post-Brexit, segmenting the UK-EEA market and preventing parallel importation that would lower prices for British consumers. Rather than seizing Brexit opportunity to liberalise IP exhaustion, it merely swaps EU law references for 'retained EU law' while maintaining the same anti-competitive structure. The EEA area concept still restricts trade flows that Adam Smith's free trade principles would encourage. The UK's independent position should allow exhaustion based on first sale anywhere in the world, not just the UK-EEA area, promoting competition and consumer welfare.

The Credit Rating Agencies (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 is a Brexit statutory instrument that transposes the EU's CRA Regulation (EC No 1060/2009) into UK law, granting the FCA extensive powers to regulate credit rating agencies including: rule-making authority over CRAs, penalty powers (up to unlimited amounts), registration and certification regimes, information gathering powers, and court application powers for injunctions. It establishes a regulatory framework for CRAs involving registration requirements, ongoing compliance obligations, and enforcement mechanisms through the FCA with Upper Tribunal appeal rights.

This regulation creates market entry barriers through mandatory registration requirements that restrict competition in the credit rating industry, handing regulatory protection to incumbent agencies. The FCA's broad, undefined rule-making powers ('such rules as appear to the FCA to be necessary or expedient') create regulatory uncertainty and compliance costs that favor large incumbents over new entrants. Credit ratings are fundamentally expressions of opinion deserving strong speech protection, not subject to prior restraint through registration mandates. The regulation perpetuates the EU's bureaucratic approach that the UK should be shedding post-Brexit, rather than seizing the opportunity to establish a more liberalized framework. Competitive alternatives such as civil liability for fraud, exchange-based voluntary certification, or contractual disclosure requirements could achieve investor protection more efficiently without restricting market entry.

These Regulations facilitate the transfer of specific police staff to the National Crime Agency (NCA). They apply to persons employed by listed police forces for activities connected to section 82 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, who voluntarily opted to transfer via notification between March 15-20, 2019 and received written acknowledgement by March 27, 2019. The Regulations preserve employment contracts, transfer all rights and liabilities to the NCA, and apply modified TUPE pension protections to the transfer.

This regulation does not impose regulatory costs on private enterprise or distort market incentives. It is a narrow, time-limited administrative mechanism for transferring specific public sector employees to the NCA, containing its own sunset by virtue of the single transfer date (April 1, 2019). The opt-in/opt-out requirements respect individual choice while ensuring administrative finality. Deletion would leave transferred staff with no legal framework governing their employment transition, potentially harming those workers who exercised their choice to transfer in reliance on this statutory framework.

Trade Marks (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 - Updates UK trademark law following Brexit by treating certain EU trade marks as registered UK marks from IP completion day, governing applications made before that date, establishing fees for comparable marks, and making consequential amendments to the 1994 Act and 2008 Rules.

Without this regulation, thousands of EU trade marks registered before Brexit would leave their holders without UK legal protection, creating legal uncertainty and damaging the ability of businesses to enforce their brands in the UK market. Trademark protection serves essential market functions: it reduces consumer confusion, enables brand investment, and facilitates fair competition. While any regulation imposes costs, deleting this would cause far greater harm by removing the legal foundation for trademark enforcement in the UK, affecting both UK businesses that relied on EU-wide marks and EU businesses with UK market presence. The fees reflect the administrative cost of processing comparable marks, which is reasonable. This is a necessary technical adaptation to changed circumstances, not a new regulatory burden.