The UK government staved off criticism from the opposition and its own Conservative MPs on Wednesday as it forced through legislation that could lead to thousands of pieces of EU law being scrapped from the UK statute.
The Retained EU law bill would result in around 4,000 pieces of legislation copied from the EU to the UK statute being “sunsetted” and scrapped by the end of 2023 if ministers do not formally state that they will be kept. This includes legislation on workers’ rights, such as the working time directive and maternity pay, swathes of environmental protection legislation, and single market law.
During a House of Commons debate on the bill on Wednesday, former Brexit Secretary David Davis complained that the bill’s provisions to empower ministers to decide whether to save or axe laws by tabling secondary law, which does not require parliamentary votes, amounted to “diktat” and that MPs should have control over what the process.
The bill would “sign a blank cheque,” said Davis.
However, amendments tabled by the opposition Labour party to extend the deadline to 2026, and exempt swathes of environmental and employment legislation, were rejected by the government’s majority in the Commons.
The bill is likely to be opposed and amended in the House of Lords, potentially setting up another institutional battle between the two chambers.
Fellow Brexiteer, former business minister Jacob Rees Mogg, who drafted the bill during Liz Truss’s brief premiership, said it was one of the “really important completions of Brexit” and would allow ministers to make good on the promise of cutting the burden of EU regulation on businesses during and after the 2016 referendum campaign.
Meanwhile, minister Nus Ghani told MPs that the bill would ensure that EU laws did not remain an “ageing relic dragging down the UK.”
(Benjamin Fox | EURACTIV.com)
Source: euractiv.com
