UK government plans to allow ministers to scrap around 2,400 pieces of EU law from UK law have been rejected and deemed “unsuitable” by the government’s legislative watchdog.
The bill on the maintenance of European legislation (Retained the EU billREUL), which is being amended in the UK Parliament, would result in the elimination of thousands of EU laws transposed into UK law by the end of 2023 if ministers do not officially announce they will be upheld.
These include legislation on workers’ rights, such as the Working Time Directive and maternity pay, as well as large parts of legislation on environmental protection, financial services and the single market.
The bill gives ministers the power to decide whether to keep or delete laws by bypassing the usual legislative processes. Legal experts and opposition parties have criticized this lack of oversight as undemocratic.
An “unsuitable” project
On Tuesday (November 22), the government’s independent regulatory watchdog, the Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC), called the bill “ unsuitable for its purpose “.
“No impact of the changes in the various elements of the REUL Act has been assessed at this time. We have asked the Department to commit to assessing the impact of amended and eliminated laws for the CPP review in the future, but the Department has not made a firm commitment to do so.said the RPC.
“We believe that those who are affected by the changes regulation is entitled to expect the Government to properly investigate the effects of these changes», have followed the organism monitoring.
The impact study, published on Tuesday, also acknowledges that there are “a high degree of uncertainty about the precise policy changes that the secondary powers and phasing-out parts of the bill allow”and describes the bill as“a facilitator of change“.
Nor does he provide an assessment of the potential costs or benefits of the approach, although he believes that “the power of repeal and replacement and the power of consolidation would be used hundreds of times“.
Reduce the weight of European regulations
This week, the question of how Britain will change its rules now that it is outside the EU has come up again.
Indeed, reports suggest that ministers plan to try to remove most of the trade barriers imposed by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which governs post-Brexit trade between the UK and the EU, via a deal inspired by the Swiss-EU economic deal. Union.
This type of agreement would be based on the principle of regulatory alignment, under which the UK would commit to respecting wholes of European single market legislation.
On Monday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told business leaders that Britain would introduce “future-ready regulatory regimes that will ensure that the country can position itself as a leader in the industries that will create the jobs and growth of the future“.
Reducing the burden of EU regulation on business was a promise of Brexit supporters during and after the 2016 referendum campaign.
Last month, a report by a UK parliamentary committee separately found that staff cuts of up to 40% combined with “poor planning and preparationhad made it difficult for UK regulators to manage the situation outside the EU.
[Édité par Anne-Sophie Gayet]