Retained EU Law - an update
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was introduced to Parliament in September 2022 and at the time, aimed to remove retained EU law from the statute books by the end of 2023. At the time, an estimated 2,400 and 3,700 retained EU laws were lined up to be ‘sunsetted’ on 31 December 2023 - if they were not retained elsewhere by an introduction of specific legislation.
On 10 May 2023 the government responded to calls for a re-think of the proposed legislation and scrapped the proposed sunset clause, instead opting for listing laws to be removed in a revocation schedule. The new proposal, approved at report stage in the House of Lords on 15 May, is that any laws not listed in the revocation schedule will be retained automatically. The bill duly received Royal Assent on 29 June 2023 as the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023.
The 130 laws to be revoked are set out in Schedule 1 to the Act and have been described as “relatively minor” and are mostly SIs. The Acts main changes are in relation to how to replace the remaining EU derived legislation over the next few years. The Act replaces the Withdrawal Act for repeal and replacement of retained EU laws and also ushers in a new phase in the relationship between EU case law and decisions of the UK courts - and potentially uncertainty where it might not be clear whether to take an EU style interpretation or not.
- The Retained EU law dashboard sets out the timeline and progress for each law. Any that remain after 31 December 2023 will be renamed “assimilated law”.
- A new process will remain in place until 2026 where repeal or restatement of assimilated law by purely domestic law is required, and this will be done by SI (although primary legislation also remains an option). The process received considerable discussion but no amendments were eventually implemented.
- Domestic law will now have primacy over EU law, except in a situation where an international obligation requires the UK to give primacy to EU law.
Posted on 07/13/2023 by Ortolan
