UK Flag Flying Regulations
On 14 May 2011 at the Flag Institute Spring Meeting the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles announced his intention to liberalise flag flying regulations in the UK. On 30 June 2011 representatives of the Flag Institute met with officials of the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) at the Institute's Mayfair address and were invited to draft new flag flying regulations. This document (with the working title Freedom to fly flags; Relaxation of statutory constraints on the display of flags) was submitted to DCLG on 26 July 2011.
In a letter to the Flag Institute dated 19 August 2011, The Right Honourable Eric Pickles MP requested that the Flag Institute
"continue to work with officials to ensure we deliver a set of proposals that are acceptable to all of Whitehall."
The resulting discussion paper titled Liberalising the regime for flying flags was published by DCLG in January 2012. The consultation period lasted from 6 January 2012 to 30 March 2012, with the results of the consultation being published on 20 September 2012 The new regulations were laid before Parliament on 17 September 2012 and came into force on 12 October 2012
Andrew Rosindell MP, Chair of the all-party parliamentary Flags and Heraldry Committee said:
"For centuries, flags have been used to display and promote the identity of nations, communities and organisations. I am delighted that British people will now be encouraged to hoist a banner and continue this tradition without restriction."
Charles Ashburner, Chief Executive of the Flag Institute said;
“This really is a new Freedom to Fly Flags. In our super fast world of instant news and ever changing technology, flags remain the ultimate symbol of identity. The deregulation of flag flying regulations is something which everyone who believes in freedom of expression should support. an important step towards encouraging and protecting the huge variety of different community and individual identities of which British society should be so proud.”
Read more about this topic: Flag Institute
Famous quotes containing the words flag, flying and/or regulations:
“Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow—red, yellow, brown, black and white—and we’re all precious in God’s sight.”
—Jesse Jackson (b. 1941)
“In song and dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community: he has forgotten how to walk and speak and is on the way toward flying up into the air, dancing.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“If the veil were withdrawn from the sanctuary of domestic life, and man could look upon the fear, the loathing, the detestations which his tyranny and reckless gratification of self has caused to take the place of confiding love, which placed a woman in his power, he would shudder at the hideous wrong of the present regulations of the domestic abode.”
—Lydia Jane Pierson, U.S. women’s rights activist and corresponding editor of The Woman’s Advocate. The Woman’s Advocate, represented in The Lily, pp. 117-8 (1855-1858 or 1860)