After Brexit, the UK’s transition out of the EU was eased by the retention of a “snap shot” of applicable EU in force in the UK on 31 December 2020, known as retained EU law. The new Retained EU law (Revocation and Reform) Bill aims to dramatically speed up the process of removing and replacing these retained EU laws. The government's press release says that this will enable the UK government to create regulations tailor-made to the UK’s own needs, doing away with outdated and burdensome EU laws.
The UK is already free to remove retained EU law, but only by using certain tightly defined processes. Seemingly, this is seen as too slow. The Bill allows for the scrapping or replacing of EU law by means of regulations. This is a much faster process and involves less parliamentary scrutiny. Crucially, the Bill includes a “sunset clause” meaning that, at the end of 2023, what’s left of some retained EU law will simply vanish and disappear into the night (although this can be extended to June 2026 if the government needs to extend the deadline in relation to specific laws).
The Bill includes provisions enabling certain retained EU law to be saved, replaced or scrapped by new regulations. The basic options are:
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