Browse regulations

The Haiti (Sanctions) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 amend the Haiti (Sanctions) Regulations 2022 to implement UN Security Council Resolution 2752 (2024). The amendments update references from older resolutions, expand the scope from 'small arms, light weapons and ammunition' to 'military goods' and 'military technology', and add new prohibitions on transferring military technology, providing technical assistance, financial services, funds, and brokering services related to military goods/technology in connection with Haiti. The regulations also prohibit enabling or facilitating armed hostilities in Haiti. Violations carry criminal penalties with defenses available where defendants did not know or had no reasonable cause to suspect the relevant facts.

While Better Britain generally opposes sanctions as restrictions on voluntary exchange, these regulations implement binding obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 2752 (2024) adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. As a permanent UN Security Council member that voted for this resolution, the UK is obligated under international law to implement these sanctions. Unilateral deletion would place the UK in breach of its treaty obligations and damage its international standing. The regulations also include appropriate knowledge-based defenses that limit liability to cases of genuine culpability.

These are commencement regulations that bring the British Nationality (Irish Citizens) Act 2024 into force on 22nd July 2025. They extend to England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, and British overseas territories.

Commencement regulations are purely procedural instruments with no independent policy content—they merely specify the date on which a parent Act takes effect. This regulation imposes no substantive obligations, prohibitions, or costs on anyone. Deleting it would not prevent the British Nationality (Irish Citizens) Act 2024 from commencing through other legal mechanisms (e.g., the Interpretation Act 1978), but would remove unnecessary legislative clutter from the statute book.

This Order designates Huntingdonshire District (Cambridgeshire) as a civil enforcement area for parking contraventions and special enforcement area, and removes some existing Surrey designations from the 2020 Order. It extends to England, applying only within England.

Parking enforcement regimes create perverse incentives where local authorities profit from fines, distorting parking supply decisions and turning traffic management into a revenue extraction mechanism. Civil enforcement, while preferable to criminal prosecution, still imposes costs on drivers through penalty charges, administrative burdens, and restricted parking access. The designation of enforcement areas restricts natural parking market dynamics and typically results in over-enforcement relative to genuine traffic safety needs.

These regulations establish a marking regime for retail goods first placed on the market in Great Britain when the Secretary of State determines that Northern Ireland consumers face supply shortages due to businesses withdrawing from the NI market because of EU-derived SPS labeling requirements. The regulations require individual marking on specified goods, create enforcement powers including improvement notices and fixed monetary penalties, and apply exemptions for small companies and certain products like food for special medical purposes.

These regulations perpetuate rather than solve the problem they address. They acknowledge that EU-derived SPS labeling requirements cause businesses to withdraw from Northern Ireland, yet instead of removing that root cause, they add another layer of regulatory burden on GB businesses. The marking requirements, enforcement mechanisms, compliance costs, and fixed monetary penalties impose costs on businesses and ultimately consumers without addressing why supply chains are distorted in the first place. The objectives could be achieved more effectively by addressing the underlying SPS Regulation requirements directly, rather than creating a parallel GB marking regime that adds complexity without solving the fundamental issue.

Amends the Road Traffic Act 1988 (Police Driving: Prescribed Training) Regulations 2023 to modify police driving training standards. Changes include: renaming 'Standard response driving' to 'Response driving'; extending validity periods from two to three years; converting training durations from days to weeks; adjusting learner-to-instructor ratios; removing certain off-road training modules; and transferring oversight from Police Sector Standards to the College of Policing.

Highly prescriptive input-based mandates that dictate specific training durations, ratios, and validity periods create unnecessary bureaucratic burden without clear safety justification. The arbitrary extension of validity periods from two to three years, re-labeling of 'Five days' to 'One week', and rigid instructor ratios are bureaucratic specifications not tied to measurable safety outcomes. These training requirements could be replaced with outcome-based standards allowing police forces and licensed providers flexibility to achieve equivalent safety results. The regulation imposes compliance costs on police training operations without demonstrating that its prescriptive approach produces better-qualified drivers than less regulated alternatives.

Extends licensing hours during the UEFA Women's European Football Championship celebration period (22-28 July 2025), allowing premises to remain open for two additional hours from 11pm on match days when England or Wales teams are playing in semi-finals (22-23 July) or the final (27 July). Applies to premises licences and club premises certificates, but does not extend to off-sales, club off-sales, regulated entertainment, or late night refreshment.

This regulation perpetuates England's restrictive licensing regime by creating targeted exemptions rather than addressing the underlying problem. The default assumption remains that businesses cannot freely set their own operating hours — this Order merely carves out special treatment for one sporting event. This discriminates arbitrarily: why should football fans get extended hours but not patrons watching other sports, films, or celebrating other occasions? The restriction on off-sales and entertainment exposes the regulation's incoherence — it enables drinking but not the corresponding activities that would naturally accompany such events. Genuine free-market reform would abolish prescriptive licensing hours entirely, allowing premises to operate according to consumer demand and their own commercial judgment, rather than maintaining a paternalistic system where the state grants temporary reprieves for approved events.

These Regulations establish procedures for identifying and correcting misreported heavy-duty vehicles under the EU-derived CO2 emission performance standards framework. They require manufacturers to respond to notifications about vehicles certified as vocational but registered as non-vocational, allow the Secretary of State to correct average CO2 emissions calculations, and specify technical simulation tool requirements per Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/2400.

This regulation preserves EU-derived CO2 emission standards apparatus post-Brexit without democratic review. The compliance costs imposed on heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers (simulation tool requirements, reporting obligations, administrative procedures) raise vehicle prices and reduce competitiveness. No evidence demonstrates the environmental benefits exceed these economic costs. The regulation perpetuates the EU's approach to vehicle emissions rather than establishing an independent UK framework aligned with British industry needs.

The M5 Junction 10 Development Consent Order 2025 grants development consent for a major highways infrastructure project at Junction 10 of the M5 motorway in Gloucestershire. It empowers Gloucestershire County Council (as undertaker) to construct, maintain and operate road improvements, including new slip roads, bridges, cycling facilities, and associated drainage works. The Order contains comprehensive powers for compulsory acquisition, temporary traffic regulation, modification of numerous other statutes (Hedgerow Regulations 1997, Highways Act 1980, New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, etc.), and grants specific companies (Gigaclear, Openreach, Severn Trent, Wales & West Utilities, National Grid, Zayo) rights to undertake related utility works. It classifies roads, establishes speed limits, and modifies rights of way.

This Order represents government-picked-winner infrastructure planning at its most extensive: it grants coercive compulsory purchase powers over private land, displaces multiple Acts of Parliament, and concentrates decision-making in a local authority with minimal market mechanism. While infrastructure has positive externalities, the Planning Act 2008 regime substitutes political allocation for competitive allocation—evidenced by the need for this 100+ article legislative instrument to authorize a single road project. The extensive modifications to Hedgerow Regulations, street works legislation, and flood compensation requirements show how this single project displaces numerous other regulatory protections. A market-based approach to infrastructure provision would not require such an omnibus legislative act. The Order's benefit accrues largely to a single developer (Gloucestershire County Council) and specified utility companies, not to competitive enterprise generally.

These Regulations amend Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/79 concerning GB type-approval requirements for 112-based eCall in-vehicle systems in motor vehicles. The amendments include drafting clarifications (replacing 'shall have to' with 'must'), insertion of new paragraphs requiring additional testing where vehicles use EU-approved components or separate technical units, a deadline of 1 January 2027 for extending certain GB type-approvals, and a new Annex X establishing a procedure for extending approvals of eCall systems operating over circuit-switched mobile networks with exemptions from certain crash tests for hands-free communication components.

eCall systems are safety-critical life-saving technologies that automatically contact emergency services via the 112 number when a vehicle is involved in a serious crash. Without rigorous type-approval requirements, Britons would be exposed to the risk of faulty or non-functional eCall systems in vehicles — a potentially fatal outcome that cannot be adequately addressed through market mechanisms alone since consumers cannot verify technical safety compliance. The regulations establish minimum performance standards ensuring these systems function correctly in emergency situations. While this is retained EU law, it serves genuine public safety purposes that justify its continuation, and the costs to vehicle manufacturers are proportional requirements for a safety-critical system.

These Regulations require responsible persons in specified residential buildings (18m+ height, 7+ storeys, or 11m+ with simultaneous evacuation) to identify residents with physical or cognitive impairments affecting evacuation, conduct person-centred fire risk assessments, implement mitigating measures, create emergency evacuation statements, share relevant resident information with fire authorities (with consent), and maintain building emergency evacuation plans. The regulations impose annual review obligations and data sharing requirements.

While addressing legitimate fire safety concerns, the regulation imposes substantial ongoing compliance costs on landlords and responsible persons that will be passed to tenants through higher rents and service charges. The requirements for individualised risk assessments, emergency evacuation statements, and annual reviews create bureaucratic burdens across thousands of buildings. The regulation duplicates existing fire safety obligations under the Fire Safety Act 2021 and Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022. The mandatory identification and data sharing of vulnerable residents' medical information raises privacy concerns and could create perverse incentives. A more proportionate approach would rely on general fire safety duties without prescriptive procedural requirements that add cost without proportionate safety benefit.

This Order amends the Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) Orders 2022 and 2023 to update references to energy assessment methodologies (SAP and RdSAP) to newer versions (SAP10.2 and RdSAP10), while providing a 6-month transitional period allowing continued use of older methodologies. It also grants the Administrator authority to publish revised methodologies for calculating annual cost savings.

Deleting this amendment would leave the 2022 and 2023 Orders with outdated assessment methodology references, creating practical inconsistencies. The transitional provisions in this Order actually provide flexibility by allowing RdSAP2012 use for six months. This is a technical alignment amendment that ensures the ECO scheme can function with updated industry-standard assessment tools; without it, energy efficiency assessments would reference obsolete methodologies, potentially creating compliance and consistency problems for the scheme's operation.

This Order amends Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000 to add three new organisations to the list of proscribed terrorist groups: Palestine Action (UK-based), Maniacs Murder Cult (MMC/MKU/MKY), and Russian Imperial Movement (RIM/RID) including Russian Imperial Legion. It also adds a clarifying note that the Palestine Action entry refers specifically to the UK-based organisation.

While I recognise concerns about government power to ban organisations, these specific designations target genuine extremist threats. The Russian Imperial Movement has been linked to terrorist plotting in Europe. Maniacs Murder Cult is a known violent extremist group. Removing this instrument would leave law enforcement without a key tool for prosecuting membership and support offences for these specific, identified threats. The core national security benefit of enabling prosecution and disruption of these organisations outweighs the regulatory costs, and alternatives such as targeted sanctions or enhanced surveillance would be less effective and likely more invasive.

Commencement regulations bringing section 95 of the Health and Care Act 2022 (information standards) into force on 7th July 2025, with a transitional saving provision preserving the prior information standards regime under the 2012 Act for standards already prepared and published before that date. Extends to England and Wales.

These are purely administrative commencement provisions with a transitional saving clause that actually reduces regulatory disruption by preserving the old regime for existing information standards. Deleting them would create legal uncertainty and gaps in the health information standards framework without achieving any free-market objective. The saving provision demonstrates careful regulatory transition management rather than regulatory expansion.

Amends Schedule 4 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 to add certain departments (Department for Transport with DVSA exception, DEFRA Counter Fraud and Investigation Team) to the table of relevant public authorities entitled to access communications data, while removing ambulance trusts, the Insolvency Service, and Scottish/Welsh Ambulance Services from the list. Also omits the definition of 'ambulance trust in England' from Part 2.

These regulations expand the alphabet soup of public authorities with power to access Britons' communications data without adequate parliamentary scrutiny. Adding DEFRA's Counter Fraud and Investigation Team to those entitled to access sensitive communications metadata represents an unnecessary expansion of state surveillance capability. While pruning some NHS bodies from the list may appear contractionary, the net effect is to broaden the scope of surveillance-eligible agencies. The original 2016 Act already represented a significant expansion of surveillance powers; incremental amendments adding new authorities without robust justification further erode civil liberties and create additional vectors for data misuse or breach.

Designates the Republic of Moldova as a country whose driving licences (Category B) can be exchanged for UK driving licences under section 108(2)(b) of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The Order specifies conditions for exchange, including that the licence holder must have passed a driving test in Moldova, the UK, an EEA State, or another designated territory. It also addresses automatic transmission limitations.

This Order perpetuates the restrictive exchangeable-licence regime rather than moving toward mutual recognition. While it adds one country to the list, it maintains a bureaucratic system that discriminates between licence holders based on nationality and requires costly exchanges that serve no safety purpose when the holder has already passed a driving test in any competent jurisdiction. A truly liberal regime would recognize any licence from a country with adequate testing standards without requiring exchange, reducing costs for migrants and the administrative burden on the DVLA.