More than 2,500 EU-derived regulations are set to remain on the UK statute book beyond the end of this year, the government has announced, in a climbdown welcomed by business groups but criticised by Tory Brexiters.
Kemi Badenoch, the UK trade secretary, confirmed that the “sunset” clause in the Retained EU Law Bill, which mandated that all the estimated 4,800-EU laws in force in Britain after Brexit must be reviewed or repealed by the end of December, would be shelved.
Instead, she announced that only “around 600” EU regulations would be scrapped under the Bill. She said that because officials were identifying a “growing volume” of EU laws, the sunset clause meant that the government had become more focused on “reducing legal risk by preserving EU laws than prioritising meaningful reform”.
During the Conservative leadership contest in August, Rishi Sunak’s team vowed to review or repeal “all” post-Brexit EU laws within his first 100 days as prime minister. At the time, UK officials had identified 2,400 regulations, but since then the number has almost doubled.
A list of the approximately 600 laws being revoked is expected to be published next week. Around 1,000 EU regulations have already been repealed, and some 500 others will be removed via the Financial Services and Markets Bill and the Procurement Bill, both of which are currently going through parliament, Badenoch said in a statement to MPs.
She signalled that more laws could be revoked in future: “We will retain the vitally important powers in the Bill that allow us to continue to amend EU laws, so more complex regulation can still be revoked or reformed after proper assessment and consultation.”
Badenoch’s statement, which means that around 2,800 EU laws could remain in force in the UK into 2024, sparked a fiery response from Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary who first set out the plan to remove all unwanted EU laws by the end of 2023.
“The prime minister promised in a campaign video to shred EU laws . . . He’s broken his promise,” he said.
A government spokesperson said that ministers were “committed to sunsetting unnecessary and burdensome EU laws” by the end of 2023 and stressed that they were on track to “deliver the key 2019 manifesto commitment to end the special status of EU law”.
The British Chambers of Commerce, the business lobby group, welcomed the government’s decision to ditch the sunset clause, which it said had carried the “real risk of unintended but negative consequences”.
Jane Gratton, the head of people policy for the BCC, said there was a balance to be struck between “first and foremost” protecting certainty for business while also reforming outdated rules.
“There is scope for reducing compliance requirements upon business in some aspects of employment law, making it better for employers and their staff,” she added.
The legislation has been heavily criticised by conservation groups, which have warned that it hands ministers extensive powers to erode environmental protections, many of which are based on EU-era regulations.
The Greener UK coalition, which represents 10 of the UK’s largest conservation groups, including the RSPB and the Marine Conservation Society, welcomed the government’s decision to retain laws by default, rather than risk them lapsing by accident.
However, they warned that the revised stance had done nothing to address the so-called ‘Henry VIII’ powers which they said would enable ministers to dilute protections without full parliamentary scrutiny.
Badenoch also unveiled a package of deregulatory reforms, including changes to the application of the EU working time directive in the UK, which the government estimates could save businesses up to £1bn a year.
Employment lawyers say that scrapping the requirement to report employees’ working hours would make little difference in practice, although the EU working time rules have often been seen as a totemic issue by Brexit supporters.
Changes to the rules on holiday pay could be more significant, potentially opening the way for businesses to exclude overtime from calculations.
“Holidays are sacred to British workers. Ministers shouldn’t be meddling with this,” said Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, the union umbrella body.
But the biggest potential change, if implemented, would be a proposal to set a three-month limit on non-compete clauses, which prevent employees working for or setting up a competing business when they leave their job.
Hannah Netherton, a partner at the law firm CMS, said it was “bizarre that such a massive change to employment law should be hidden away”, calling it “a major infringement of an employer’s ability to protect its business”.