A BILL repealing all the remaining EU laws still on statute books by the end of the year has been described as ‘not democratic’, ‘inefficient and possibly incompetent’ by critics. The Retained EU Law Bill was passed last Wednesday by 59 votes, despite efforts from MPs in both the Conservative party and Opposition to defeat it. The bill will likely face opposition in the House of Lords.
The bill will see UK Government departments either repeal or reform all laws derived from the EU that stayed on statute books after the UK formally left the trading bloc in 2020. It is estimated that there are about 4,000 pieces of legislation that will have to be removed in the next 11 months. The EU-derived laws and regulations cover a wide variety of areas in UK law, including environmental policy. As a result, environmental and farming groups such as The Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust urged the Government to scrap the bill, which was originally proposed during Boris Johnson’s tenure as Prime Minister and has been supported by both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
The groups warned that simply scrapping legislation would be undemocratic, writing in a letter to MPs ahead of the vote that the bill ‘enables ministers to make changes to rules behind
