Browse regulations

These Regulations implement and administer EU-derived school milk subsidy schemes in England and Northern Ireland post-Brexit, establishing rules for granting aid for milk products in educational establishments, recovery mechanisms for overpayments, interest charges on debts, and amend/revoke related regulations.

These Regulations exist solely to administer a subsidy regime for school milk—an agricultural market intervention that distorts production decisions and allocates resources inefficiently. Post-Brexit, Britain should not retain this bureaucratic apparatus for EU-derived farm subsidies. The regulations impose compliance burdens on schools and suppliers, attach conditions to aid that distort behavior, and represent precisely the kind of EU-era market intervention that should be swept away. Children can access milk through private markets; government need not mandate and subsidize this.

Amends the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Application to Revenue and Customs) Order 2015 to apply additional PACE provisions regarding court extensions of police bail limits to Revenue and Customs investigations, including Sections 47ZF (first extension), 47ZG (subsequent extensions), and 47ZH (withholding sensitive information). Also adds subsection (1)(cab)(ii) to Section 17.

These provisions extend court oversight to Revenue and Customs bail procedures, providing important safeguards against indefinite bail that protect individual liberty. The bail extension framework creates judicial accountability rather than allowing investigative bodies to hold individuals in limbo indefinitely. The sensitive information withholding provisions appropriately balance investigative needs with rights of the accused. Removing these would remove procedural clarity and protections that apply to police, creating an inconsistent and potentially more arbitrary framework for Revenue and Customs investigations.

The Recreational Craft Regulations 2017 implement EU Directive 2013/53/EU on recreational craft and personal watercraft. They establish essential requirements for design/construction, exhaust emissions, and noise emissions; require conformity assessment procedures, UK marking, and declarations of conformity; and impose obligations on manufacturers, importers, and distributors throughout the supply chain. The regulations include market surveillance provisions, enforcement powers, and requirements for documentation retention.

This is retained EU law imposing substantial compliance costs with no demonstrated market failure justifying intervention. The conformity assessment, technical documentation, labeling, and market surveillance requirements create significant barriers to entry for small manufacturers and SME boat builders. The regulation restricts consumer choice and increases costs for recreational watercraft without evidence that safety risks require this level of government control — people have built and used boats safely for centuries without such mandates. The many exemptions (racing craft, canoes, kayaks, historical watercraft, private importers) suggest even the regulator doubts the necessity of comprehensive coverage. Post-Brexit, this represents exactly the type of EU-derived regulatory burden that should be removed to restore Britain's position as a free-trading, innovative maritime nation.

A commencement order that specifies the dates on which provisions of the Criminal Finances Act 2017 come into force: Section 47 on 17th July 2017, and remaining Part 3 provisions on 30th September 2017.

This is a purely procedural commencement order that merely specifies when provisions of the Criminal Finances Act 2017 take effect. It imposes no regulatory burden, creates no compliance requirements, and serves only to provide legal certainty about effective dates. Without it, the timing of the Act's provisions would be unclear. As a ministerial instrument regulating only the administrative question of when legislation takes effect, it serves a legitimate function that cannot be achieved through private ordering.

This Order amends the Capital Allowances Act 2001 (Cars Emissions) Order 2016 by adding a savings provision (Article 7) that preserves the pre-2018 tax treatment for car hire expenditure under contracts entered into before the relevant date (6th April 2018 for income tax, 1st April 2018 for corporation tax). It ensures existing car hire contracts are not disrupted by the main Order's amendments.

This is a spent transitional savings provision. The relevant dates (April 2018) have long passed, meaning the clause has already served its purpose of protecting existing contracts from the 2016 amendments. All contracts covered by this savings clause would have concluded years ago. The Order adds no ongoing regulatory burden itself but represents a retrospective protection that is now obsolete, and keeping it adds unnecessary complexity to the statute book without any present effect.

The Family Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2017 amend the Family Procedure Rules 2010 to: (1) add references to the Family Court (Composition and Distribution of Business) Rules 2014; (2) substitute rule 8.25 on applications without notice to give courts discretion on whether to require notice; (3) omit rule 8.28 on district judge referrals; (4) modify rule 9.15 to expand circumstances where cases need not be referred to FDR appointments; (5) amend rule 17.1 on interpretation. The Rules include transitional provisions for applications filed between 7th August and 4th September 2017.

These amendments are procedural refinements that actually increase judicial discretion and streamline family court processes. The modified FDR appointment rules reduce unnecessary referrals when prior attempts have been effective. The simplified 'without notice' application rules provide courts flexibility rather than imposing rigid requirements. Unlike EU-derived retained law, these are domestic procedural rules that were thoughtfully amended by the rulemaking authority. Deleting them would create procedural vacuum rather than reduce burden — Britons are better served by clear, modernized court procedures than by their absence.

Amendment Rules 2017 that update the Schedule to the Justices' Clerks and Assistants Rules 2014 by inserting additional FPR (Family Procedure Rules) cross-references and conditions governing when certain procedural rules apply in family proceedings. The changes are purely administrative, adding references to rules 6.14, 6.16, 6.19, 6.20, 7.10, 7.20(4), and 9.46(2), along with a condition about co-respondent agreements.

These are technical procedural amendments updating cross-references in court staff rules. Deletion would create gaps in the regulatory framework governing court personnel, causing procedural uncertainty. The rules impose no economic restrictions, do not affect trade or business activity, and are not EU-derived gold-plating—they are domestic procedural rules for court administration. Removing them would harm court efficiency without generating any meaningful deregulatory benefit.

These regulations exempt mobile communication apparatus on ships from section 8(1) of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006, subject to technical conditions including distance requirements from the baseline (2-4 nautical miles depending on system type), frequency band restrictions (900/1800 MHz for GSM, 1800/2600 MHz for LTE, 1900/2100 MHz for UMTS), maximum power limits, antenna requirements, and interference mitigation obligations. They replaced the 2011 regulations.

These regulations restrict maritime mobile communications through artificial distance barriers from shore (2-4 nautical miles), mandatory technical parameters, and indoor antenna requirements that serve primarily to protect land-based mobile network operators from competition rather than preventing genuine harmful interference. The underlying Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 already prohibits causing undue interference. The technical mandates on power levels, bandwidth, timing parameters, and carrier frequencies add compliance costs without proportional benefit, while the distance restrictions prevent ships from offering competitive mobile services near coastal waters where land-based coverage is often poor or non-existent. Such restrictions should be determined by commercial arrangements between ship operators and service providers, not prescriptive statutory requirements.

These Regulations amend the National Health Service (Quality Accounts) Regulations 2010 to add new reporting requirements (items 27.1-27.9) for NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts regarding patient mortality data. Trusts must report: total deaths with quarterly breakdowns, case record reviews/investigations conducted, estimates of deaths judged likely due to care problems, learnings from reviews, actions taken, and revised estimates from prior periods. The amendment applies to NHS trusts under section 8(2)(b) of the 2009 Act and NHS foundation trusts, but exempts ambulance trusts.

This regulation imposes significant administrative burden on NHS trusts, requiring extensive quarterly data collection, analysis, and reporting on patient deaths. The compliance costs divert resources from actual patient care. Mandatory quality accounts create bureaucratic box-ticking rather than genuine quality improvement—the evidence for such reporting mandates actually improving outcomes is weak. In a competitive healthcare market, providers would voluntarily disclose quality metrics to attract patients; the NHS's near-monopoly structure (which this agency seeks to address) is precisely why these mandates are necessary, yet they do nothing to increase supply or reduce the monopoly's power. The regulations perpetuate reliance on state-mandated transparency rather than market discipline.

Amendment to Civil Legal Aid financial eligibility regulations allowing the Director to disregard Grenfell Tower fire victim payments (donations, charitable payments, compensation) from income and capital calculations when determining legal aid eligibility. Defines 'victim' to include residents, those present, injured persons, nearby evacuated residents, family members of deceased/missing, and personal representatives.

While enacted for sympathetic reasons, this regulation creates discriminatory carve-outs based on victim status rather than applying uniform financial eligibility rules. It establishes a precedent of special legal aid treatment for specific tragedy victims, undermining the principle of equal access to legal aid based on means. The unseen costs include: incentivising future ad-hoc legislative responses to tragedies rather than maintaining consistent welfare policy; creating administrative complexity in distinguishing Grenfell victim payments from other payments; and setting a precedent that could be expanded to other groups, further fragmenting the legal aid system. The regulation does not address any EU-derived burden, City competitiveness, planning, or NHS issues — it is a targeted subsidy policy that should have been structured as explicit grant funding rather than a permanent alteration to regulatory eligibility criteria.

Amends the Child Trust Funds Regulations 2004 to replace references to the Official Solicitor or Accountant of Court with 'the person appointed by the Treasury or the Secretary of State by virtue of section 3(10) of the Act'. Introduces special provisions for children who were looked after on 30th September 2017, modifies account management conditions, and adds information transfer requirements when an appointee ceases their role.

This regulation streamlines administration of child trust funds by replacing rigid references to specific offices with a flexible appointment mechanism. Deletion would leave the 2004 framework in place with outdated references to the Official Solicitor and Accountant of Court, creating potential gaps in managing vulnerable children's accounts. The amendment actually reduces bureaucratic complexity while maintaining appropriate safeguards for children who cannot manage their own accounts.

Commencement regulation bringing into force provisions of the Childcare Payments Act 2014 (tax-free childcare scheme) on 14 July 2017 for children born between 1 April 2013 and 31 August 2013 and their siblings. The regulation defines eligibility criteria and commencement dates for the scheme's implementation.

This regulation merely commences a distortive subsidy scheme rather than removing one. The Childcare Payments Act 2014 created a 20% government top-up for childcare payments, artificially driving demand toward approved formal providers while disadvantaging informal, family, and unregistered care arrangements. Such market intervention distorts parental choice, imposes administrative compliance costs on childcare providers, and uses fiscal policy to pick winners in the childcare market rather than allowing it to function freely. Since Parliament has already passed the parent Act, this regulation simply activates its most problematic provisions; deleting it would prevent implementation of this counterproductive scheme.

This Order amends the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Reviews of Sentencing) Order 2006 to expand the scope of cases subject to mandatory sentencing reviews under Part 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. It adds a new category (paragraph 3A) covering: (1) terrorism offences under the Terrorism Acts 2000 and 2006 and the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001; and (2) certain violent, property, and forgery offences where jurisdiction exists under extra-territorial provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000. The Order applies to England and Wales.

This regulation expands the bureaucratic machinery of sentencing reviews to terrorism offences and, critically, to extra-territorial jurisdiction over conduct occurring entirely outside the UK. While terrorism offences carry serious penalties, adding these cases to mandatory sentencing review schemes adds procedural burden without clear recidivism-reduction evidence. The extra-territorial provisions are particularly concerning — they extend UK criminal jurisdiction globally for terrorism-related purposes with no demonstrated necessity for domestic sentencing consistency. This reflects the pre-Brexit pattern of accumulating powers without adequate democratic scrutiny.

The Payment Services Regulations 2017 (SI 2017/1019) implement the EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2) into UK law, establishing a regulatory framework for payment service providers including authorization/registration requirements, capital adequacy, safeguarding of user funds, strong customer authentication, operational risk management, and FCA supervision powers. The regulations create three categories of payment service providers (authorized payment institutions, small payment institutions, registered account information service providers) and grant the FCA extensive powers to maintain a register, impose requirements, and take enforcement action.

This is a retained EU law imposed without democratic scrutiny by the UK Parliament, and the regulatory framework creates substantial barriers to entry for fintech firms and smaller payment service providers through duplicative authorization requirements, capital requirements, and compliance burdens that favor large incumbents. The FCA's exemption from liability in damages (regulation 121) removes accountability for regulatory failures. While consumer protection objectives are legitimate, they can be achieved through contract law, fraud liability, and market competition rather than extensive licensing regimes that concentrate market power among large banks and established institutions. The compliance costs of this regime are ultimately borne by consumers through higher payment fees and reduced innovation, undermining Britain's position as a potential global fintech hub post-Brexit.

The 2017 Amendment Regulations modify the 2003 Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations by restructuring planning permission notification requirements for code operators (telecommunications providers) across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The amendments clarify which infrastructure activities—installing cabinets/pillars/pedestals and installing/altering/replacing masts—require planning authority notification, and introduce separate criteria for each UK nation. The regulations also make minor amendments to other incorporation references and omit regulation 3 from the 2013 amendment regulations.

These regulations impose planning notification conditions and restrictions on telecommunications infrastructure deployment that create bureaucratic barriers to network expansion. The fragmented UK-wide approach (different rules for England vs Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland) adds compliance complexity without clear corresponding benefits. Such planning-related restrictions on deploying telecommunications equipment—cabinets, masts, and similar apparatus—contribute to Britain's infrastructure deployment difficulties and hinder the rapid rollout of broadband and mobile networks that economic competitiveness requires. The regulation perpetuates a regime where telecommunications operators face asymmetric approval requirements that can delay and increase costs of essential infrastructure, damaging Britain's global competitiveness in the digital economy.