Regulations are seductive to governments because they can meet political pressures without taxing and spending. The costs are borne by the private sector and do not show up on the Government's balance sheet.
A riddle put to the UK government to show the unaccounted for indirect effects of regulation was "How can you spend more money on rail safety and increase transport deaths?" The answer: You do it by requiring one of the safest forms of transport – rail – to spend £200 million every year on safety measures after some comparatively rare accident. Fares are raised to cover the cost, driving people onto the roads, which are five times more dangerous. In 1993, action on the UK's Deregulation Bill began dismantling some of the 3,500 regulations that the UK business sector are required to observe, including "passports" for cows and sheep.
Over-regulation is the biggest single obstacle to a dynamic free-market economy. It threatens the political culture because the law-abiding feel they are taken for fools as it becomes smart to treat all government legislation with a dismissive shrug.
The UK Children Act would be much better entitled the Restriction of Access to Childcare Act, because it sets over-ambitious standards for childcare which are ideal rather than a minimum. This overprices childcare in the marketplace and makes it less available.