Browse regulations

This Order sets prescribed compensation amounts (£36,000 standard; £44,200 in Greater London) for blight provisions under section 149(3)(a) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It applies to England and came into force on 21st April 2017, revoking the 2010 Order.

Blight provisions create anti-development distortions by imposing arbitrary compensation thresholds that inflate costs for developers and discourage construction. The specific monetary thresholds (£36,000/£44,200) are bureaucratic figures that bear no necessary relationship to actual market values or harm. These provisions entrench NIMBYism by making development more expensive and effectively grant property owners veto-like power over development through compensation threats. Far from liberalising the planning system, blight provisions worsen Britain's housing crisis by adding regulatory friction to development at precisely the moment when post-Brexit regulatory reform should be removing barriers to construction.

A commencement regulation specifying when provisions of the Enterprise Act 2016 take effect. Sets the Small Business Commissioner and Schedule 1 to commence on 6th April 2017, Part 1 and the extended primary authority scheme on 1st October 2017, and defines the appointed start date for SBC complaints scheme exclusions.

This is a purely procedural administrative instrument that merely specifies commencement dates for provisions already enacted by Parliament. It imposes no regulatory burden, creates no compliance requirements, and does not restrict market activity. Deleting it would create legal uncertainty about when Enterprise Act 2016 provisions take effect, producing administrative chaos without reducing any actual regulatory burden. The regulation merely facilitates orderly implementation of primary legislation.

The Chichester (Electoral Changes) Order 2017 abolishes existing electoral wards in the district of Chichester and replaces them with 21 new wards, each with a specified number of councillors. It also reorganises parish wards for Chichester and Selsey, with provisions for phased implementation (proceedings preliminary to elections in 2017, full force for 2019 elections). The order includes map references and interpretive provisions for boundary definitions.

This is a technical electoral administration instrument that reorganises local government boundaries for democratic representation. It imposes no economic regulatory burden, does not restrict market activity, and serves a legitimate democratic function in ensuring fair representation. Electoral boundary administration cannot be achieved through voluntary coordination and requires state coordination. The order has already been implemented for multiple election cycles and its deletion would create administrative chaos.

This Order reorganises electoral wards in the borough of Harrogate, abolishing existing wards and establishing 40 new wards with one councillor each. It also reorganises parish wards for Killinghall, Knaresborough and Ripon, specifying the number of councillors for each parish ward. The Order includes provisions for interpreting boundary lines on a referenced map.

This is a routine local government administrative reorganisation necessary for democratic representation. Unlike EU-derived regulations or gold-plated directives that impose regulatory burdens on businesses, this Order simply adjusts electoral boundaries to ensure fair representation. Deleting it would create a legal vacuum in local governance with no economic or freedoms benefit.

These Regulations link UN financial sanctions Resolutions to corresponding EU financial sanctions Regulations for the purposes of section 155 of the Policing and Crime Act 2017, establishing a correspondence table between the two regimes. They came into force on 1st April 2017 and provide that references to either set of regulations have effect as references to the current version as varied or supplemented.

Financial sanctions are a manifestation of international obligations under the UN Charter and reflect foreign policy/national security objectives, not economic regulation. This regulation is a technical linking mechanism that ensures legal coherence between international obligations and domestic enforcement. While post-Brexit the UK has independent sanctions powers under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, this regulation serves a coordination function. Deleting it would create legal uncertainty and potential gaps in enforcement without corresponding economic benefit, as the underlying sanctions obligations would remain. The regulation itself imposes no direct regulatory burden on economic actors—it merely provides a mapping framework.

This Order abolishes the existing electoral wards of South Cambridgeshire district and replaces them with 26 new wards, specifying which areas comprise each ward and the number of councillors to be elected per ward. It establishes the timing of when the changes take effect and defines how ward boundaries are interpreted when they follow geographical features.

Electoral boundary orders are fundamental housekeeping for democratic governance, not regulatory burdens on economic activity. Without this Order, there would be no legal basis for the ward structure that determines how South Cambridgeshire residents are represented in local government. Deletion would create democratic illegitimacy and administrative chaos, not economic dynamism.

This Order abolishes existing wards of Huntingdonshire district and parishes of Fenstanton, Huntingdon, St Ives and St Neots, replacing them with new ward boundaries and councillor allocations. It uses a reference map held by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England to define boundaries, with provisions for interpreting boundaries along geographical features. The Order comes into force in stages - first for electoral proceedings, then for all purposes at the 2018 ordinary day of election.

Electoral administration requires defined ward boundaries for elections to function - without this statutory framework, there would be no legal basis for conducting district and parish council elections in Huntingdonshire. This is a technical necessity of democratic governance, not regulatory burden. The Local Government Boundary Commission's map-based system provides clear, objective boundary definitions that minimize disputes. Unlike gold-plated EU directives or anti-competitive regulations, this merely establishes the administrative infrastructure for holding elections - an essential government function that cannot be achieved through market mechanisms.

The London Borough of Bexley (Electoral Changes) Order 2017 abolishes existing wards and divides the borough into 17 newly defined wards with specified councillor numbers, based on map references held by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. It establishes electoral boundary arrangements and brings provisions into force on specified dates.

This is a technical electoral administration order that defines ward boundaries and councillor allocations necessary for democratic governance. Deleting it would create a legal vacuum in local election administration, producing confusion and potentially invalid elections. There is no economic or regulatory rationale for deletion—unlike EU-derived regulations that impose compliance costs or restrict economic activity, this simply maps existing political boundaries. It does not restrict trade, impose bureaucratic burden on businesses, or distort market incentives.

These Regulations bring into force on 1st April 2017 the provisions of Part 8 of the Policing and Crime Act 2017 that are not already in force. Part 8 contains miscellaneous policing provisions including powers relating to police conduct, anonymised data use, and various administrative matters.

As a commencement order, this instrument has no independent regulatory effect—it merely activates provisions of the parent Act on a specified date. Deleting it would not prevent those provisions from taking effect via subsequent commencement or automatic provision. More importantly, the underlying Part 8 provisions inherited from the 2017 Act should themselves be reconsidered as part of any systematic regulatory review, since this order's effect is merely to perpetuate whatever regulatory burden those provisions contain. A commencement order that merely perpetuate inherited EU-era or domestically-added regulatory burden without democratic scrutiny warrants deletion as part of a broader rationalisation of the statute book.

This Order amends two earlier Commencement Orders (2013 and 2015) related to the Welfare Reform Act 2012's universal credit rollout. With effect from 6 April 2017, it inserts references to regulation 39 of the Universal Credit Regulations, which imposes restrictions on universal credit claims during an 'interim period'. The amendments ensure that transitional provisions governing the interaction between universal credit and other benefits (employment and support allowance, jobseeker's allowance, housing benefit, tax credits) account for these interim period restrictions.

This amendment adds another layer of regulatory restriction to an already complex web of transitional provisions governing universal credit. Regulation 39's 'interim period' restriction on universal credit claims effectively traps claimants in older, more bureaucratic benefit systems rather than allowing them to move to the simplified universal credit regime. These transitory provisions, originally intended as temporary stopgaps during phased rollout, have become permanent features that add complexity without improving outcomes. The cumulative effect of these amendments is to restrict claimant choice and prolong dependency. Britons would be better served by allowing universal credit claims to be made freely, reducing the administrative burden on claimants and the state alike.

This Order imposes a compulsory levy on employers in the engineering construction industry to fund the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB). It sets levy rates of 1.2% on site employee emoluments and 0.14% on off-site employee emoluments, with exemption thresholds (£275,000 for site employees, £1,000,000 for off-site employees). The Order establishes assessment procedures, appeal mechanisms to employment tribunals, and payment terms, while revoking the 2015 Order.

This compulsory industry levy forces employers to fund a statutory training body, raising labor costs in the engineering construction sector and reducing competitiveness against international rivals. Training decisions should be voluntary private contracts between employers and employees, not government-mandated extraction. The exemption thresholds for smaller employers acknowledge the harm to business. The Order represents the kind of interventionist industrial policy—compulsory contributions to industry bodies—that Adam Smith and classical liberal economists would have opposed as an interference with natural liberty and voluntary exchange.

Amends School Governance (Constitution) and (Federations) (England) Regulations 2012 to: create new regulation 24A enabling governing bodies to remove elected parent or staff governors following a procedure; impose a 5-year disqualification from governorship after such removal (paragraph 12A of Schedule 4); modify parent governor election/appointment procedures (adding 'order of preference' language, removing sub-paragraphs); and amend federation Academy order application requirements (regulation 46).

Creates a new centralized mechanism for removing elected governors with a punitive 5-year disqualification period that was not previously required. This imposes national procedural standards on what should be locally determined governance matters, adding bureaucratic friction without evidence of corresponding benefit. The 5-year ban on re-election punishes removed governors excessively and may deter capable individuals from standing for parent/staff governor positions. These amendments increase regulatory burden on schools without demonstrating improved educational outcomes or governance quality — the kind of unintended regulatory expansion that restricts local autonomy and adds cost without value.

This Order amends the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001 to implement MiFID II (Directive 2014/65/EU) and MiFIR (Regulation 600/2014) into UK law. Key changes include: new definitions for 'organised trading facility' (OTF), 'structured deposit', and updated references to EU regulations; insertion of article 25DA specifying operation of an organised trading facility as a regulated activity; amendments bringing structured deposits within scope of various regulated activities; updates to emission allowances provisions; and comprehensive amendments to Schedule 2 updating the list of financial instruments and adding detailed organisational requirements for investment firms.

This regulation is EU-derived legislation implementing MiFID II/MiFIR that was retained post-Brexit without proper democratic review. It exemplifies the gold-plating problem: British civil servants transposed EU directives that were designed for the EU single market, not UK competitiveness. The highly prescriptive requirements for organised trading facilities, structured deposits, and derivative classifications add compliance burden that disadvantages the City of London relative to New York, Singapore, and Dubai. Post-Brexit regulatory independence demands we redesign financial services regulation tailored to UK interests rather than inherited EU bureaucratic requirements. The equivalence provisions for third-country firms are tied to EU Commission decisions rather than UK autonomy.

The Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) (Amendment) Order 2017 amends the ECO scheme, extending it from two phases to three phases (ending 30th September 2018), setting overall targets of 19.7 MtCO2 carbon reduction and £6.46bn home heating cost reduction for the period April 2015 to September 2018. It introduces minimum rural requirements (0.15×C), minimum home heating requirements (0.76×H for phase 3), new certified installer requirements per PAS 2014/2017 standards, and detailed eligibility criteria for heating qualifying actions including local authority statements of intent for fuel poverty targeting.

ECO mandates energy companies to subsidize energy efficiency measures, adding costs to energy bills that are ultimately borne by all consumers including the fuel-poor. The certified installer requirements create barriers to entry, the complex targeting rules (local authority statements, help-to-heat group definitions, means-testing) impose substantial administrative overhead that reduces resources reaching beneficiaries. Phase 3 extension and multiple minimum requirements (rural, home heating, solid wall) fragment the obligation into bureaucratic compliance exercises. The scheme distorts the market for energy efficiency by mandating specific actions rather than allowing cost-effective innovation.

The Electricity and Gas (Internal Markets) Regulations 2017 amend the Gas Act 1986 and Electricity Act 1989 to implement EU energy market rules, primarily the CACM Regulation (Commission Regulation (EU) No 2015/1222) on capacity allocation and congestion management. It defines 'nominated electricity market operators' (NEMOs), updates cross-references to EU regulations, and imposes extensive compliance obligations on NEMOs including duties related to single day-ahead and intraday coupling, algorithm development, confidentiality, and cost recovery.

This regulation is EU-derived legislation retained after Brexit, implementing rules that were designed for EU energy market integration. It imposes extensive compliance obligations on nominated electricity market operators (NEMOs) covering algorithm development, coupling operations, confidentiality, and cost recovery requirements. Post-Brexit Britain has the opportunity to chart its own course on energy market regulation rather than maintaining EU-derived rules. The regulation creates regulatory burdens that could be reassessed to promote competition and innovation in UK energy markets, potentially attracting investment and restoring the UK's position as a free-trading energy hub.