Employers across the UK may soon be operating in a very different employment law landscape. The government’s ‘Brexit Freedom Bill’ – or, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022-23 (‘the Bill’) – has now been published.
This Bill fast-tracks reform of EU-derived employment law: other than regulations which the government specifically chooses to retain in its current form, all European Union (EU) derived employment law will be either amended, repealed or replaced by the end of 2023.
We answer some key questions on what this means for employers.
How does the Bill change the existing approach to retained EU law?
On 31 December 2020 – the date the transition period out of the EU ended – a new category of employment law was created: retained EU law. All EU law that applied to the UK on 31 December 2020 became part of the UK’s domestic legislation. This is known as ‘EU-retained law’.
Post-Brexit, the government then had the option to make changes to that legislation, in the same way that it would make changes to any other domestic legislation.
However, EU-retained law was generally thought to be a relatively low priority area for reform post-Brexit, with no fixed timetable for change.
Following publication of the Bill, that approach has now shifted significantly. Once the Bill becomes law, the default position will be that by the end of 2023, all regulations under EU-retained law will automatically be
revoked,
repealed, or
amended
UNLESS the government...
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