During the first of the Conservative Party leadership contests last year, both the final candidates (Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak), trying to outbid each other’s Brexit credentials, promised to ‘review’ remaining EU laws currently in UK legislation.
Just when we breathed a sigh of relief that the lettuce had won the battle of shelf-life with Truss, we found that a Bill originally sponsored by arch-Brexiter, Jacob Rees-Mogg, is being pushed through parliament, and is set to ‘double down’ on the economic and societal damage already inflicted on this country by Brexit.
Nearly 4,000 laws to be revoked
The obscurely named Retained EU law (revocation and reform) Bill 2022 (mis-termed the ‘Brexit freedoms Bill’ by Brexiters) is driven by ideology. It was introduced during Rees-Mogg’s tenure as business secretary. Despite his resignation, in anticipation of Sunak’s ascent to prime minister, the Bill, having been paused for a time, has now moved from the House of Commons to the Lords, where it had its first reading on 19 January.
If passed, it will revoke by default, by the end of 2023, an estimated 3,800 laws (this has grown from the original estimate of 2,400) derived from the UK’s 40-year membership of the EU, which maintain our employee rights, especially those of working women, and consumer rights. Also threatened are essential environmental protections affecting habitats, animal welfare, agriculture, fisheries, food standards and water quality, as well as impacts on aviation, transport, data protection and many other areas.
Despite promises that Brexit could mean higher standards than the EU’s, as made clear by Clause 15 (5), the Bill does not confer power to improve standards and protections, but only to reduce them, as revisions or replacements of EU law must “not increase the regulatory burden.”
An anti-democratic Bill
Lawyers argue that the Bill undermines parliamentary democracy as it gives extraordinary ‘Henry VIII’ powers to ministers to repeal and revise all EU-derived legislation which the UK, as an EU member, through its politicians and diplomats, helped to draft, and approved.
At its heart is a ‘sunset clause’, which means that EU-derived legislation will be revoked on 31 December 2023, without further parliamentary scrutiny, unless an exemption is made by a minister of the UK government or a devolved authority. A minister may extend the date, but not beyond 23 June 2026 – which has no significance other than its being the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum.
The Bill will remove the right of parliamentary scrutiny of the ongoing legislative process, leaving individual judges in the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court to make effectively political decisions as to whether a retained EU law “restricts the proper development of domestic law.” This will therefore create ongoing legal uncertainty.
Workers’ and environmental rights are threatened
Trade unions have expressed their horror that EU-derived employment protections, including the right to equal pay for work of equal value, and the Working Time regulations – which include the 48-hour working week, minimum rest periods and annual paid leave entitlements, for example – all appear to be at risk.
The TUC, Greener UK (a coalition of ten major environmental organisations including the RSPB, the National Trust, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, etc) and the Scottish government, amongst many others, have given evidence to the Bill committee in the House of Commons. It is now up to the Lords to try to secure amendments and to limit the damage threatened by this Bill.
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Reducing labour protections in ways which undermine standards, and abolishing environmental standards, will also be in breach of the ‘level playing field’ provisions of the trade and co-operation agreement between the UK and the EU, signed by Boris Johnson at the end of 2020. Businesses cut off from the EU single market by non-tariff barriers are already facing a whole new layer of red tape for exporters, as well as grappling with new UK rules applied by understaffed domestic regulators. Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s Brexit negotiator, has warned the UK to ditch plans for a ‘bonfire’ of EU regulations after Brexit, or face inevitable new trade barriers.
Tearing-up of thousands of environmental protection measures will undermine attempts to address the climate change crisis and will also remove decades-old protections against the destruction of nature. The sheer scale of the legislative mayhem in prospect will require large numbers of additional civil servants to be recruited to handle the task.
Mark Spencer, minister of state for food, effectively admitted (in a written answer to Labour’s shadow secretary) that the government has embarked on a project that threatens vital protections, without any idea of the cost or the resources needed.
The Bill must be scrapped
The UK is currently the only G7 economy currently still below pre-pandemic levels of output. The post-Brexit legacy already includes, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, a reduction in long-run productivity by four per cent relative to remaining in the EU.
If the UK is to regain its international standing as an attractive place for investment, it needs stable regulation, on a level with that of the EU, capable regulators and confidence in the predictability of the rule of law. If it is to remain a country worth living in, this Bill, which will destroy our rights and our natural environment, must be scrapped.
