Browse regulations

This Order adds bodies to the list of 'recognised lending institutions' under section 447(1) of the Housing Act 1985, making them eligible for government home purchase assistance programs. It represents a bureaucratic mechanism to control which lenders can participate in subsidised housing finance.

Creates an unnecessary government-approved list of lenders, distorting competition, raising barriers to entry, and adding regulatory compliance costs. Free markets should determine which institutions succeed without bureaucratic recognition. The underlying assistance program itself is a market intervention that could be replaced by direct consumer support, eliminating these distortions entirely.

This order specifies approved lending institutions for the Housing Act 1985's Right to Buy scheme, establishing priority of charges for mortgage lending on properties sold under the right to buy scheme.

This regulation ensures mortgage lending stability and protects both lenders and homeowners in the Right to Buy scheme, preventing housing market disruption and maintaining access to homeownership for council tenants.

Specifies bodies recognised for mortgage indemnities under the Housing Act 1985, granting them legal status to provide such services.

Unnecessary government intervention that restricts competition in the mortgage indemnity market, increases costs through regulatory burden, and creates moral hazard by endorsing specific providers. This 1988 regulation is obsolete and its removal would promote a more dynamic and efficient financial sector.

The 1988 regulation provides detailed rules for calculating double taxation relief on foreign loan interest received by UK companies. It defines key terms (loan, interbank market, interest period), establishes methods for attributing sums to financing costs (using interbank bid rates or usual margins), includes anti-abuse provisions, and specifies transitional application dates. The purpose is to prevent double taxation by allowing tax credits for foreign taxes on loan interest while ensuring relief limited to genuine financial expenditure rather than profit.

Deleting this regulation would subject UK businesses to double taxation on foreign loan interest, creating a major disincentive for cross-border capital flows and undermining London's competitiveness as a global financial centre. The complexity—while burdensome—serves legitimate purposes: preventing abuse, ensuring relief is properly targeted to financing costs, and maintaining fiscal integrity. A complete repeal would harm British investors and lenders with foreign exposure, restrict efficient global capital allocation, and contradict Britain's post-Brexit ambition to be the world's most dynamic free-trading nation.

The Prison (Amendment) Rules 1988 amend the Prison Rules 1964 by deleting references to 'convicted' in certain provisions and removing the explicit right to food and drink from grievance procedures, thereby weakening legal protections for prisoners' basic needs.

Removing statutory recognition of prisoners' right to sustenance invites cost-cutting abuse in a state monopoly, leading to health emergencies, legal challenges, and reputational harm without any genuine efficiency gain.

The Industrial Training Levy (Construction Board) Order 1988 imposes a mandatory levy on construction employers to fund the Construction Industry Training Board. It establishes assessment procedures, payment timelines (due one month after notice), and appeal mechanisms to industrial tribunals. The levy applies to establishments operating 27+ weeks in a 12-month period, creating a compulsory funding mechanism for industry training.

This mandatory levy coercively extracts funds from construction businesses to fund a government training board, distorting market signals and raising costs in an industry already plagued by a housing crisis. Training should be determined by voluntary employer decisions and market wage premiums for skills, not bureaucratic planning. The CITB creates a monopoly that misallocates resources, reduces competitiveness, and adds regulatory layers that increase construction costs—passing expenses to homebuyers and worsening affordability. The same objectives could be achieved more efficiently through trade associations, private training providers, and employer-led apprenticeships without compulsion.

This 1988 Order sets the framework for the Secretary of State to fix fees for government services including company registration, trademark and patent filings, registered designs, insolvency proceedings, and wireless telegraphy licensing. It specifies which functions under various Acts (Companies Act 1985, Insolvency Act 1986, Trade Marks Act 1938, Registered Designs Act 1949, Patents Act 1977, Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949, and bankruptcy provisions) may attract fees, referencing the enabling Finance (No. 2) Act 1987.

Keeping this obsolete regulation imposes real costs: it references numerous repealed Acts (Companies Act 1985, Insolvency Act 1985, Bankruptcy Act 1914), creating legal uncertainty and requiring civil servants to maintain a zombie statute that cannot be reliably applied. It contributes to regulatory clutter, increasing compliance costs for businesses and professionals who must navigate an outdated statute book, and undermines the rule of law by preserving dead letter that should have been repealed decades ago.

This is a commencement order that brings into force section 13 of the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 in Scotland, effective February 1, 1988. It applies only to Scotland and specifies the start date for a particular section of the parent Act.

This is a procedural commencement order that simply activates existing legislation. Deleting it would not remove the underlying protections for disabled persons but would create legal uncertainty about when the provisions take effect. The section likely contains important consultation and representation rights that would be hard to restore without causing disruption.

This regulation increases various insolvency fees and percentages across multiple fee categories, adjusting amounts from previous levels (e.g., £16.25 to £17.40, percentage rates from 10% to 15%, etc.) to generate additional revenue for insolvency proceedings.

This is a straightforward fee increase that raises costs for businesses and individuals without addressing any underlying market failure. The regulation creates deadweight loss by reducing the number of viable insolvency proceedings and transfers wealth from private parties to the state without providing corresponding benefits. The fee increases likely discourage legitimate business restructuring and liquidation that could preserve value.

Establishes a new trunk road along the Llanidloes By-pass route, transferring it from local to national highway authority control, with the centre line defined on a deposited plan and the order taking effect March 3, 1988.

This infrastructure regulation creates essential transport capacity that would be difficult to achieve through market mechanisms alone, enabling regional economic development and reducing congestion on existing routes.

This is a commencement order that brought Section 7 and Part III of the Sex Discrimination Act 1986 into force on 26th February 1988. It is a procedural instrument with no substantive regulatory content, solely marking the effective date of certain provisions already long since implemented.

Obsolete spent commencement order with zero current legal effect. It is purely historical procedural paperwork that accomplished its purpose in 1988 and now clutters the statute books. Retaining such executed commencement orders adds to the regulatory burden without any functional benefit. The substantive Sex Discrimination Act itself may warrant review on policy grounds, but this particular instrument is irrelevant debris that should be removed to streamline the legal codebase.

A 1988 traffic regulation order that restricts specific turning movements and cross-traffic on Bath Road (A4) in Hounslow, controlling access at three central reservation gaps and requiring vehicles to keep a triangular island site on the right when turning at Berkeley Avenue.

This is a hyper-localized, 37-year-old traffic management order that imposes specific turning restrictions on a single road segment. Such granular traffic control should be handled by local authorities via traffic signs or simpler orders, not by statutory instruments. The regulation's narrow scope and age suggest it may be obsolete or redundant with modern traffic schemes, representing unnecessary legal clutter that achieves minimal public benefit at the cost of flexibility and outdated rulebooks.

Site-specific traffic order establishing a box junction on a section of the A3 trunk road in Wandsworth. Prohibits vehicles from entering the marked box area unless they can immediately exit, with exemptions for emergency services, police direction, right-turning vehicles, and vehicles that can immediately clear the area.

This 36-year-old hyper-local regulation represents regulatory clutter. Keeping obsolete, un-reviewed orders impedes adaptive traffic management and burdens the statute book. If still needed, it should be re-justified with current evidence rather than perpetuated by default.

Prescribed routes order for A41 Watford Way (Barnet), specifying mandatory right turns from designated lanes and prohibiting service road connections to manage traffic at the junction with Greyhound Hill and Aerodrome Road.

Deletion would create immediate safety hazards and chaos at a critical junction, leading to accidents and congestion that harm local residents and businesses. This narrowly-tailored traffic order uses existing road infrastructure efficiently, and alternative approaches (e.g., complex signaling or redesign) would be vastly more costly and disruptive.

A 1988 commencement order that brought the remaining provisions of the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 into force on 3rd February 1988. This is a purely procedural instrument with no substantive regulatory content, merely setting an effective date for an existing Act.

This is a spent procedural order from 1988 that accomplished its one-time purpose over 35 years ago. It has no current legal effect, imposes zero ongoing compliance costs, and represents obsolete paperwork cluttering the statute books. From a free-market perspective, maintaining dead legislation creates unnecessary legal complexity and compliance confusion, even if minimal. Removing it simplifies the legal code without any economic downside.