Government Abandons Plans to Automatically Scrap Thousands of Pieces of EU Law
The Government has confirmed it will amend the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill in order to provide more certainty for businesses.
What is the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill?
The Bill is a piece of draft legislation originally designed to automatically remove thousands of pieces of retained EU law from our domestic legal framework from the 'sunset date' of 31 December 2023. We have previously reported on the Bill and the criticism it has attracted.
What Has Now Changed?
In light of this criticism, and in order to clarify the impact of the Bill, the Government has now confirmed its plans to make a major amendment to the draft Bill. Retained EU law will no longer automatically be 'sunsetted' at the end of this year. Instead, some 600 pieces of legislation specifically named in a new schedule will now be removed, including regulations on things such as air pollution, food, the environment and energy. No key pieces of employment law will be removed under the schedule.
Some parts of the Bill remain unchanged. A second sunset date will operate to effectively remove directly effective rights and obligations derived from EU treaties and directives. These have not been particularised by the Government and it remains to be seen if they will be.
