Every criminal offence made by UK secondary legislation
Most of the criminal law is not in Acts of Parliament. It is in regulations and orders made under them, by ministers, usually without a debate. This is a census of 23,878 of those offences, read from the text of 156,107 statutory instruments.
What this shows
Strict liability is the norm, not the exception. 74% of the offences here can be committed without any intention, knowledge or carelessness on the part of the defendant. The prosecution has to prove that the thing happened, and nothing about the defendant’s mind.
Revoking an offence does not stop it being an offence. 199 offences here have been revoked and yet remain prosecutable for conduct before a cut-off date, because a saving provision kept them alive. A person can still be charged, years later, with doing something it is no longer an offence to do. Those are the hardest offences to find anywhere else, because the revised text on legislation.gov.uk simply does not contain them — a repealed provision is not marked repealed there, it is gone.
Nobody counts them. There is no official list of the offences created by statutory instrument, and no per-offence prosecution figures for the overwhelming majority of them. Where a figure could not be found, this site says so rather than printing a zero — because absence of a figure is not evidence that an offence is unused.
Browse by subject
- International sanctions, export control and trade restrictions 3,635 offences
- Food, consumer protection, trading standards, product safety and age-restricted sales 3,226 offences
- Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheries 2,518 offences
- Transport: maritime, aviation, rail and harbours 1,924 offences
- Corporate, financial services, company law, employment, charity, electoral and tax 1,694 offences
- Agriculture, plant health, food production and rural affairs 1,529 offences
- Dogs, animals, hunting and wildlife 1,418 offences
- Road traffic and vehicles 1,129 offences
- Miscellaneous 1,082 offences
- Drugs and medicines 715 offences
- Courts, police, prisons and the administration of justice 662 offences
- Housing, planning, heritage and land 593 offences
The instruments that create the most offences
- The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (Scotland) Regulations 2010 91 offences
- The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2010 (revoked) 88 offences
- The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (England) Regulations 2010 (revoked) 86 offences
- The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2008 (revoked) 82 offences
- The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (England) Regulations 2008 (revoked) 80 offences
- The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (Wales) Regulations 2008 79 offences
- The Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2011 (revoked) 78 offences
- The Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (Scotland) Regulations 2006 77 offences
How each offence is described
Every offence page states, from the words of the provision itself: who it binds, what conduct it prohibits, what the prosecution must prove, whether any defence puts a burden on the defendant, the maximum penalty, whether the provision is still in force, and what the department said the instrument was for. Where Parliament debated the instrument, what was said is quoted with a link to Hansard.