Browse regulations

Amends the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (Allocation of Allowances for Payment) Regulations 2013 to modify the allocation and payment framework for 2017-2019, replacing 'any other year' provisions with specific fixed prices for forecast and compliance application periods, and introducing a compliance-only period structure for 2019.

The CRC scheme was an inherently flawed cap-and-trade mechanism that imposed significant administrative and compliance burdens on large organizations while achieving questionable emissions reductions. This amendment merely adjusts prices for a scheme that was already being wound up—the CRC was abolished in 2018. Fixed allowance prices remove the price discovery function of a genuine market, defeating the purpose of a cap-and-trade system. The scheme added costs to businesses without clear evidence of corresponding carbon reduction benefits, and smaller businesses bore disproportionate administrative costs relative to their emissions. Post-Brexit regulatory reform should prioritize removing such market-distorting mechanisms rather than maintaining them with temporary amendments.

These regulations, effective April 1st 2017, grant NHS England functions related to concluding and managing framework agreements for procuring services, drugs, medicines, and medical products for the National Health Service. They require NHS England to comply with Secretary of State assistance requests and mandate consultation with registered pharmacists at every NHS trust.

Framework agreements mandated by this regulation concentrate procurement power in NHS England, reducing competition among suppliers and potentially raising costs through monopolistic purchasing arrangements. The mandatory consultation requirements with registered pharmacists at every trust add bureaucratic friction without clear patient benefit. Individual NHS trusts should have autonomy to procure based on their specific needs rather than conforming to centralized framework agreements that benefit large suppliers over smaller innovative ones. This represents the type of regulatory consolidation that reduces market flexibility and competition in healthcare procurement.

These Regulations 2017 amend Housing Benefit, Universal Credit, and related Rent Officers Orders to modify size criteria for bedroom entitlements. Key changes include adding new definitions for 'member of a couple who cannot share a bedroom' (for disabled claimants receiving attendance allowance, DLA care component, PIP daily living component, or armed forces independence payment) and expanding the definition of 'person who requires overnight care' to include additional categories. The regulations apply to existing awards from April 2017 and affect determinations of maximum rent (social sector) and LHA rates.

This regulation layers additional regulatory complexity onto an already burdensome housing benefit system, creating new categorical entitlements based on disability status that distort housing markets. It establishes state-determined judgments about bedroom sharing capacity for disabled couples rather than allowing individuals to negotiate their own housing arrangements. The regulation creates perverse incentives: it may discourage disabled individuals from partnering, incentivizes claims of disability to access larger housing, and adds administrative verification burdens for local authorities. By dictating bedroom allocation based on disability receipt rather than actual housing needs, it interferes with market signals and may reduce housing supply elasticity. The original policy intent (protecting disabled people from unsuitable housing) could be achieved through simpler, less distortionary means such as direct disability grants or liberalized planning for accessible housing.

Development Consent Order authorising construction and operation of an energy from waste facility and electricity/heat generating station (Works No. 1a) at Edmonton EcoPark, North London. Grants North London Waste Authority compulsory purchase powers, rights to carry out street works, alter rights of way, temporarily suspend public footpaths, and provides noise nuisance defences under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Contains 29 articles and multiple schedules covering authorised development, requirements, procedures, streets, access points, and land acquisition.

While this Order grants significant coercive powers including compulsory acquisition of land and limitations on nuisance claims, it authorises a specific infrastructure project (energy from waste generating station) that, if deleted, would prevent construction of a facility providing essential waste management and energy generation for North London. The project has undergone full examination under the Planning Act 2008 process with environmental assessment. The noise provisions (article 7) do limit liability but require compliance with Control of Pollution Act procedures and agreed noise monitoring schemes, providing genuine protection to nearby residents. Without this DCO, the economic and social costs of prevented development would likely exceed the regulatory costs of keeping it.

Amends NHS (Direct Payments) Regulations 2013 to introduce 'managed account' framework allowing third parties to hold and apply direct payments on patients' behalf, expand definition of 'connected person' to include household friends, and modify conditions for managed accounts. Purpose is to increase flexibility in how NHS direct payments can be managed.

These amendments expand patient autonomy and choice in managing their healthcare payments. They introduce the managed account concept which provides a safe, regulated framework for patients who cannot or prefer not to manage finances themselves, enabling third-party management without eliminating patient control. Deletion would remove these flexibilities and revert to more restrictive 2013 rules, harming patients who benefit from direct payment arrangements and potentially forcing them into institutional care.

The Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2017 sets a 1.0% increase rate for that portion of guaranteed minimum pension (GMP) attributable to earnings factors for specific tax years, under section 109(2) and (3) of the Pension Schemes Act 1993. It came into force on 6 April 2017.

While the underlying GMP regime reflects the kind of state-mandated benefit structures that distort private pension markets, this Order merely implements the inflation adjustment mechanism for benefits already legislated. Deleting it would leave GMP obligations intact but create a legal vacuum where accrued benefits erode in real terms with no adjustment mechanism—a result that harms pensioners without addressing the fundamental flaw of the contracting-out system. The better reform would be to eliminate the underlying GMP legislation entirely, not to create administrative chaos by removing only this adjustment provision.

This SI amends the Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004 to increase TV licence fees from April 2017: colour TV licence rises from £145.50 to £147.00, black and white from £49.00 to £49.50. It also updates numerous instalment payment amounts, interim licence fees, and replaces outdated reference years from 2010 to 2017 across multiple schedules.

This regulation perpetuates a compulsory taxation mechanism that forces all television owners to fund the BBC regardless of whether they consume its content. While this SI merely adjusts prices within an existing scheme, each such instrument reinforces a distorted market where consumers cannot exercise genuine choice over funding public service broadcasting. The TV licence system suppresses voluntary market alternatives and creates an effective monopoly on television funding. Deleting this would preserve the prior (lower) pricing structure while the broader policy debate about BBC funding reform continues.

These Regulations establish the fee structure for planning approval requests under the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Act 2017, setting out how fees are calculated by reference to gross floor space or site area, payment procedures, refund rules for invalid requests, and dispute resolution mechanisms for the HS2 railway project.

These are cost-recovery fees for processing planning applications on a specific major infrastructure project, not regulatory burden on the broader economy. User fees for government services are preferable to general taxation as they create appropriate cost signals. Without these fee regulations, planning authorities would lack dedicated funding to process complex HS2 applications, potentially causing greater delays and costs on this major national project. The fees are borne by the undertaker (HS2 Ltd), not the general public, and represent a narrow, project-specific administrative mechanism.

Amends the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirements) Piloting Order 2016 by extending the pilot period for alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirements (under section 76 of the Act) from 31st December 2017 to 31st December 2018.

This is a minor administrative extension of a time-limited pilot program by one year. As a pilot, it is specifically designed to generate evidence on whether alcohol abstinence monitoring requirements are effective at reducing reoffending. Deleting this would deny Britons the opportunity to gather crucial empirical data on a sentencing alternative before deciding whether to adopt, modify, or abandon it. The pilot's limited duration and scope mean the regulatory burden is contained and under review.

These 2017 Regulations establish the written representations procedure for planning appeals under Schedule 17 of the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Act 2017. They prescribe procedural requirements including: notification timelines, questionnaire and statement submissions, representations from third parties, electronic transmission rules with consent mechanisms, and time limits (7, 14, 21 days) for various stages of the appeal process for HS2 planning decisions.

These regulations are a compliance burden that add procedural layers to HS2 planning appeals without corresponding democratic value — they inherit and formalize a framework for a project that has faced sustained criticism for cost overruns, value-for-money failures, and questionable route decisions. The multi-stage written process (questionnaires, statements, representations, replies) with rigid time limits creates administrative overhead that slows infrastructure delivery with no evidence of improving decision quality. The written representations procedure is itself a mechanism that was designed without adequate parliamentary scrutiny of its specific costs and benefits for this particular project. The regulations serve a project that the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee have documented as poor value for taxpayers.

Amends the Recovery of Costs (Remand to Youth Detention Accommodation) Regulations 2013 to update daily cost recovery rates effective 1st April 2017. New rates inserted: £191, £536, and £579 for different categories of youth detention accommodation, replacing previous rates that applied before that date.

This is a routine annual rate adjustment for existing cost recovery mechanisms between central government and local authorities for youth detention placements. Deletion would create administrative chaos and funding gaps, as these rates are necessary for the functioning of existing statutory obligations. No private market restriction is involved—youth detention is a core state function with no competitive alternative market, and this merely adjusts reimbursement levels within an established framework.

Amends the Social Security (Industrial Injuries) (Prescribed Diseases) Regulations 1985 to add C34 (Extrinsic allergic alveolitis) to the list of prescribed industrial diseases, expand A1 cancer coverage to include colon, liver, lung, ovary, stomach, testis and thyroid cancers, modify B6 to broaden biological substance coverage, and remove restrictive criteria from D9. The regulation expands occupational disease coverage under the Industrial Injuries scheme.

This regulation expands the Industrial Injuries compensation scheme, which creates moral hazard by encouraging occupational disease claims and shifting risk from employers to the state. While each individual expansion may seem reasonable, the cumulative effect is to deepen state involvement in labor markets, increase employer national insurance contributions, and distort wage differentials that should signal occupational risk. Workers in dangerous occupations are better served by market-driven compensation structures and proper employer liability than by prescribed disease lists that inevitably fail to keep pace with scientific understanding of occupational hazards.

This Order brings into effect the revised Code of Practice on Industrial Action Ballots and Notice to Employers, effective 1st March 2017. The Code provides guidance on conducting lawful industrial action ballots and employer notification requirements under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

This Code of Practice imposes additional procedural burdens on unions and workers seeking to take industrial action, including requirements that go beyond the minimum legal standards in the 1992 Act. Such guidance raises compliance costs, creates delays, and disproportionately benefits employers by making collective action more difficult to organize. The underlying statutory requirements remain in the Act; deleting this Order merely removes the gold-plated guidance layer that adds friction without corresponding benefit to the public.

This Commencement Order brought into force section 44 and Part 4 of Schedule 16 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, implementing a pilot scheme for electronic monitoring of offenders in East London and North London local justice areas. The provisions came into force on 13th March 2017 and automatically ceased at the end of 12th March 2019 — a two-year limited pilot with transitional savings for monitoring requirements imposed during that period.

The regulation is entirely spent — it automatically ceased to be in force on 12th March 2019. The pilot period has long expired, and all transitional provisions have concluded. This instrument now serves no purpose and merely clutters the statute book. Furthermore, even at the time, the geographic restriction to only two London justice areas created arbitrary inequality, treating offenders differently based solely on location rather than circumstance or offense severity.

The Code of Practice (Picketing) Order 2017 brings into effect a revised Code of Practice on Picketing effective 1st March 2017. The Code applies to trade unions organizing or encouraging members to take part in picketing under section 220A(1) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. It provides guidance on acceptable conduct during picketing activities.

This Code of Practice institutionalizes and legitimizes picketing as a protected activity, granting trade unions a recognized framework to disrupt businesses and economic activity. Rather than protecting individual liberty, it provides state sanction to collective action that can coerce workers, damage businesses, and restrict economic freedom. Deletion would restore the primacy of property rights and contract law over union privileges, reducing the regulatory mooring that enables economic disruption. The underlying right to picket derives from primary legislation; this Order merely provides administrative guidance that tips the balance in favor of union power at the expense of business competitiveness and worker freedom.