use strict;
my $str = '<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/23/contents">UK Bribery Act</a> (“the Act”) received Royal Assent in April 2010 and came into force in July 2011. It was designed to modernise and simplify the UK’s anti-corruption legislation and to more effectively address requirements imposed under the <a href="http://www.oecd.org/daf/anti-bribery/ConvCombatBribery_ENG.pdf">OECD anti-bribery Convention</a>. The Act outlined four prime offences, including the introduction of a new corporate offence of failure to prevent bribery. And the <b>rest is history</b> so is the ending.</p>';
my $regex = qr/(?:(?<tag>(?<!\/).)|(?:\/.))(?: href="(?<url>.+?)")?>(?<text>.+?)</mp;
my $subst = '';
my $result = $str =~ s/$regex/$subst/rg;
print "The result of the substitution is' $result\n";
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html