The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (the “Act”) has become law, seeking to redefine how EU-based laws should be treated in the UK post-Brexit. But unravelling decades of laws that have grown together is not straightforward, and the long-term impact of the Act is likely to be significant. We examine what the future looks like for employers.
What are REULs?
Post-Brexit, to ease the transition and given the amount of work required to untangle UK laws from EU laws, a new category of UK domestic law called “retained EU Law” (or REUL for short) was created. Essentially, legislation took a snapshot of EU law in force in the UK on December 31, 2020 and provided guidance on its interpretation to ensure legal certainty.
It has since been possible to remove and amend retained EU laws, but some have considered this too slow. The Act is designed to speed up the departure of UK law from retained EU law and to end its special status in the UK. As the government explained here, retained EU Law was only an intermediate measure and was “never intended to sit on the statute book indefinitely.”
How does the Act work?
We have been monitoring the Act’s path to becoming law on June 29, 2023 (see here and here) and consider the key mechanisms and impacts below:
1. Certain listed retained EU laws will be deleted at the end of 2023
The government first proposed that most retained EU laws (including those impacting employers, such as laws on working time or business transfers...
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