The government has announced a climbdown over its post-Brexit plans to remove EU laws from the British statute book by the end of the year.
The EU retained law bill, which is currently going through parliament and recently passed its commons stages, was set to automatically remove any EU laws at the end of 2023, unless they were chosen to be saved by Whitehall officials.
But the government on Wednesday confirmed that they were ditching the bill’s “sunset clause” and that the mass exodus of EU legislation would not go ahead as planned. The move was confirmed by business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch in a written ministerial statement.
Opposition parties have described the change as a “humiliating U-turn” and the remaining EU retained law bill as a “sinking ship”.
However, home office minister Sarah Dines has now insisted the decision is “not quite a U-turn”.
She told GB News: “It’s not quite a U-turn, it’s a more calculated, calm way of getting rid of some of these laws. We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater”.
The minister added: “We need to make sure we get rid of those laws which we don’t need and we keep some which are compatible with what we want to do in this country”.
Ms Badenoch said in a written statement published on Wednesday afternoon that said the government was moving forward with “a new approach” that would “replace the current sunset in the bill with a list of the retained EU laws that we intend to revoke under the bill at the end of 2023”.
She added; “This provides certainty for business by making it clear which regulations will be removed from our statute book, instead of highlighting only [EU laws] that would be saved”.
She stated only 600 laws would be revoked under their legislation rather than the 4,000 pledged, insisting it is “about more than a race to a deadline”.
And in an article for The Telegraph, Ms Badenoch even blamed the behaviour of unnamed Whitehall officials for the change.
“When I was handed responsibility for this Bill I saw that, confronted with the default position of retained EU law sunsetting at the end of this year, Whitehall departments had focused on which laws should be preserved ahead of the deadline, rather than pursuing the meaningful reform government and businesses want to see”, she said.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, who drew up the original bill as a government minister, has accused Rishi Sunak of breaking his promise on post-Brexit legislation.
He said: “the written ministerial statement breaks the prime minister’s clear promise to review or appeal all EU laws in his first hundred days”, adding: “This is an admission of administrative failure”.
Labour shadow cabinet office minister Jenny Chapman described the policy change as a “humiliating U-turn from a weak and divided government with no clue how to grow our economy, protect workers, support business or build a better Britain outside the EU”.
She added: “After wasting months of parliamentary time, the Tories have conceded that this universally unpopular bill will damage the economy, at a time when businesses and families are already struggling with the Tory cost of living crisis. They are now trying to adopt some of Labour’s amendments to try and rescue this sinking ship of a bill.
“We will continue to fight to ensure this legislation does not water down hard won workers’ rights, undermine business confidence, or give ministers unaccountable powers they cannot be trusted with”.
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Fox said the Tories had “dug themselves into a hole” with the bill, adding: “While they may have stopped digging, they’re still in the hole”.
