Browse regulations

Amends the Firearms Rules 1998 by substituting updated forms in Schedule 5 for firearms dealers applying for registration or notifying places of business. In force from 10th June 2019.

This instrument merely updates administrative forms for existing firearms dealer registration requirements. It does not create new substantive regulatory burdens — the underlying licensing regime for firearms dealers exists independently in the 1998 Rules. Deleting this instrument would create administrative dysfunction without reducing any actual regulatory requirement, as firearms dealers would still need to be registered under the principal rules. The forms themselves are neutral administrative tools; any substantive concern about firearms dealer regulation lies with the parent instrument, not with this procedural amendment.

This Order transfers functions from the UK Secretary of State to Scottish Ministers regarding environmental impact assessments for offshore generating station consents under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 in the Scottish Renewable Energy Zone. It provides for concurrent exercise of these functions by both Secretaries.

This Order fails to reduce the overall regulatory burden — it merely fragments environmental assessment authority between two jurisdictions. Concurrent jurisdiction creates complexity, potential regulatory arbitrage, and inconsistent decision-making for energy infrastructure projects. Post-Brexit regulatory independence should streamline approvals, not multiply them. Environmental assessment requirements add cost and delay to critical energy infrastructure; splitting authority between Scottish and UK ministers compounds these problems without countervailing benefit.

Amends the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 to permit the Greater London Authority and Transport for London to apply CIL funds to repay borrowing and interest for Crossrail scheduled works (as defined in the Crossrail Act 2008) until 31st March 2033. Applies to England only.

Deleting this would leave GLA and TfL without a specified mechanism to service Crossrail debt already incurred, potentially requiring alternative public funding or higher TfL fares. Crossrail is operational infrastructure with demonstrated economic value to London and the broader UK economy; redirecting CIL to service this debt is a targeted, time-limited provision (until 2033) that does not expand CIL's scope but merely clarifies acceptable use of funds for pre-existing infrastructure commitments.

These Regulations make miscellaneous amendments to three statutory instruments concerning Armed Forces procedures: (1) amendments to the Armed Forces (Part 5 of the Armed Forces Act 2006) Regulations 2009 updating charge sheet procedures, service requirements, and DSP charge amendment authority; (2) amendments to the Armed Forces (Review of Court Martial Sentence) Order 2009 adding certain sexual offences to the review list; (3) amendments to the Armed Forces (Prescribed Air Navigation Order Offences) Order 2009 updating article references from the 2005 to the 2016 Air Navigation Order. The regulations include transitional provisions for cases referred before 1st July 2019.

Britons would be worse off if these regulations were deleted because: (1) The military justice procedural framework governs how charges are brought against service personnel - removing these procedures would create a governance vacuum in how the Armed Forces enforce discipline under the Armed Forces Act 2006; (2) The Air Navigation Order updates are purely technical references corrections from the 2005 to 2016 Order - deleting them would create confusion and legal uncertainty about which aviation safety provisions apply to military personnel, potentially disrupting air safety enforcement; (3) These are procedural administrative regulations specific to military discipline and aviation safety, not broad economic regulations that distort markets or suppress competition - they do not impose significant burdens on private enterprise or general commerce.

These Regulations, made under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, revoke EU export credits legislation including Council Decisions 82/854/EEC and 2006/789/EC, and Regulation (EU) No. 1233/2011 along with associated delegated regulations. They come into force on the later of exit day or the day after making. The Regulations also replace the earlier 2019 revocation instrument (SI 2019/473).

This regulation accomplishes exactly what Better Britain advocates: it removes EU regulatory burden from the UK's statute book. Unlike most EU-derived regulations that impose costs through compliance requirements, this instrument solely removes constraints on officially supported export credits. Deleting it would reinstate the very EU laws that British Parliament has twice (in 2019 and via this No. 2 instrument) determined should be removed. The revocation creates post-Brexit policy space for the UK to design its own competitive export credit regime unfettered by EU coordination requirements, aligning with Adam Smith's principle that trade should flow without government direction.

The Companies (Directors' Remuneration Policy and Directors' Remuneration Report) Regulations 2019 extend directors' remuneration reporting and approval requirements from quoted companies to unquoted traded companies. Key provisions include: mandatory shareholder approval of remuneration policies; detailed annual remuneration reports with specified table formats; website publication of policies and voting results; inclusion of CEO/deputy CEO in remuneration definitions even if not formal directors; requirements for disclosure of vesting/holding/deferral periods for share-based pay; and data protection restrictions on personal data in reports. The regulations amended the Companies Act 2006 and the Large and Medium-sized Companies and Groups (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008.

Extends costly compliance burdens to unquoted traded companies with no corresponding shareholder benefit — these companies already face market discipline from shareholders who can vote on pay. The prescriptive table formats, column definitions, and disclosure requirements add administrative costs that disproportionately burden smaller companies without improving governance outcomes. The CEO/deputy CEO provision creates overreach by treating non-directors as directors for remuneration purposes. Market mechanisms and existing shareholder voting rights already provide sufficient oversight; mandatory detailed reporting beyond what shareholders need for decision-making imposes net costs on companies and ultimately shareholders. The 10-year document retention requirement and website publication rules add further unnecessary compliance burden.

The Control of Salmonella in Poultry (Amendment) Order 2019 amends the Control of Salmonella in Poultry Order 2007 by inserting a reference to EU Regulation (EC) No 2160/2003 on the control of salmonella and other food-borne zoonotic agents. It comes into force the day after being made.

This amendment simply inserts an EU Regulation reference into domestic law with no apparent parliamentary deliberation. Post-Brexit, retained EU food safety regulations should undergo full democratic review rather than being silently incorporated. The amendment adds regulatory compliance costs to poultry producers without evidence it achieves outcomes beyond what less burdensome alternatives (liability law, private certification, targeted inspections) could accomplish. Food safety externalities exist but do not require this specific regulatory mechanism.

Administrative order appointing named individuals as Her Majesty's Inspectors of Education, Children's Services and Skills, effective 23rd May 2019. The Schedule contains the list of appointees.

This is a straightforward appointment instrument, not a regulatory burden in the Mises/Hayek/Friedman sense. It does not impose new regulatory requirements, restrictions on trade, or barriers to entry. Deleting it would simply leave inspector positions vacant without legal incumbents, creating accountability gaps in education and children's services oversight — a functional state that harms Britons through reduced accountability rather than reducing genuine regulatory burden.

These Regulations amend Northern Ireland's Transport Act 1967, Road Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 1981, and various 2014/2019 Regulations to adapt them for post-Brexit operation. They remove references to EU 'Community' provisions, replace them with equivalent references to EU law as retained, define 'the 2009 Regulation (EU)', and modify the Public Service Vehicles (International Passenger Services) Regulations to remove EU-specific licensing requirements (Community licences, cabotage controls, etc.) while maintaining the underlying regulatory framework for international road passenger transport operators.

These amendments exist solely to preserve an existing regulatory framework governing international road passenger transport. The Transport Act's good repute requirements, professional competence standards, and road service licensing regime—originally derived from EU Directive 96/26/EC and Regulation 1071/2009—impose compliance costs, create barriers to market entry, and restrict operator supply. Rather than reduce this burden post-Brexit, the regulation perpetuates it by making technical fixes that keep the framework operational. The retained EU rules on operator qualifications and licensing should have been liberalised or repealed, not preserved with corrected references.

The Tollesbury and Mersea (Blackwater) Fishery Order 2019 grants exclusive 'several fishery' rights (20-year monopoly) to the Tollesbury and Mersea Native Oyster Fishery Company Limited for harvesting clams, mussels, and oysters in a specified area of the Blackwater River, Essex. It requires the company to mark fishery limits, maintain a management plan, publish it publicly, conduct annual reviews, and consult interested parties (including Natural England and the Secretary of State) before any updates.

This Order confers a government-granted 20-year exclusive monopoly on a private company for specific shellfish species, restricting competition and free access to a natural resource. While fishery management is important, exclusive several fishery rights are an unnecessarily restrictive mechanism that picks winners and creates rent-seeking opportunities. Less restrictive approaches—such as catch quotas, licensing with sustainability standards, or voluntary cooperative management—could achieve conservation goals without excluding other market participants from the resource. The Order's core flaw is that it uses state power to confer private exclusivity rather than setting performance-based rules that all participants can follow.

Consequential amendments to the Excise Goods (Drawback) Regulations 1995 and Excise Goods (Holding, Movement and Duty Point) Regulations 2010 to extend existing tobacco regulatory provisions to cover 'tobacco for heating' products. The amendments add tobacco for heating to definitions, duty point rules, and holding provisions that previously applied only to chewing tobacco, ensuring this new product category is integrated into the excise framework.

While regulations should generally be scrutinized for hidden costs, these amendments are machinery provisions that bring tobacco for heating within an existing consistent excise framework rather than creating new regulatory burden. Deletion would create a regulatory gap where heated tobacco products would be treated inconsistently with other tobacco products, creating uncertainty and potential duty avoidance. The extension of existing rules to a new product category, rather than gold-plating or new regulation, represents proper legislative housekeeping rather than regulatory expansion.

These Regulations appoint 1st July 2019 as the day on which subsections (2) and (4) of section 57 of the Finance Act 2019 (concerning tobacco for heating) come into force. It is a machinery provision bringing certain tax-related provisions of the Finance Act into effect.

This is a purely procedural appointed day regulation that brings Parliament's clearly expressed will into effect. Without it, the operative provisions of Section 57(2) and (4) of the Finance Act 2019 would have no fixed commencement date, creating legal uncertainty. While one may debate the merits of heated tobacco taxation on libertarian grounds, this regulation merely executes a decision already made by Parliament through primary legislation — it adds no new regulatory burden of its own, only implements the appointed date. Deleting it would cause practical confusion without altering the underlying policy.

These Regulations amend the Occupational Pension Schemes (Investment) Regulations 2005 and the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2013. They require pension scheme trustees to disclose policies on asset manager arrangements, including incentives, performance evaluation time horizons, portfolio turnover cost monitoring, and arrangement duration. They also mandate public disclosure of voting behaviour, proxy voter usage, and require schemes to publish investment principles statements on websites. The regulations add definitions for 'portfolio turnover costs', 'stakeholder', 'targeted portfolio turnover', 'time horizon', and 'turnover range'.

These regulations impose substantial compliance costs and administrative burdens on pension scheme trustees without demonstrating commensurate benefit to beneficiaries. The mandatory disclosure of asset manager incentive structures, portfolio turnover policies, and voting behaviour creates significant paperwork requirements that Small Penalties may deter smaller schemes from optimal asset management. The focus on 'non-financial performance' and 'stakeholder' considerations introduces ideological preferences into investment decisions that may not align with maximizing pension returns. Website publication mandates add further cost without clear evidence beneficiaries value this information. Such prescriptive disclosure requirements restrict trustee discretion and may drive business to larger asset managers capable of bearing compliance costs, reducing competition in fund management.

Amends Further Education Loans Regulations 2012 to add regulation 25 allowing Secretary of State to cancel fee loans where courses are no longer available, student has applied, and it is appropriate. Also amends Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011 to update income threshold calculations for adult dependants' grant, childcare grant, and parents' learning allowance, adding new brackets where lower income thresholds apply.

The fee loan cancellation provision is consumer-protective rather than burdensome—preventing students from liability for courses that cease to exist. The income threshold amendments are technical adjustments maintaining means-testing accuracy for student grants. These amendments operate within an existing student finance framework and impose no discretionary regulatory burden on businesses or trade. Deletion would leave students liable for courses they could not attend and would disrupt means-tested support calculations.

This Order amends the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Surcharge) Order 2012 by replacing 'over 18' with '18 or over' in article 4 (referring to adult offenders aged 18 or over), substituting a new Schedule setting out surcharge amounts, and providing transitional provisions excluding offences committed before 28th June 2019 from the amendments.

This amendment is a technical clarification that makes the regulation clearer and more inclusive of 18-year-old adult offenders. The transitional provisions appropriately protect defendants whose offences predated the change. While the surcharge system itself operates as a cost recovery mechanism, the amendment itself improves legal clarity and avoids potential exclusion of 18-year-olds who are unambiguously adults under the law. Deletion would revert to the less clear 'over 18' terminology and miss the Schedule updates.