What the 'bonfire' of EU regulations could mean for your business

The Retained EU Law Bill will affect huge swathes of legislation in this country, many of which are fundamental to how we live - from the safety of products like toys to ensuring the food we buy is safe to eat.

The Bill’s aim is to review and decide whether to retain, reform or remove thousands of regulations built up by dint of our decades-long membership of the EU.

However, in the Bill’s current form, there is a ‘sunset’ on regulations that were formed while we were in the EU, meaning that unless thousands of laws are proactively “saved” by ministers, they’ll be removed by the end of next year.

The risk, therefore, is that opportunities to reform - and improve - legislation would be squandered through lack of time. In addition, some pieces of legislation could simply get ‘missed’ and removed from the statute book by mistake.

This is bad news for consumers in terms of potential losses of crucial protections - as well as for businesses in terms of lack of legal certainty with potential for so many legal requirements to change or disappear in such a short space of time.

And a cost of living crisis is hardly the time to leave an open door for rogue traders to exploit potentially weakened crucial safety and consumer rights protections.

For civil servants to consider the impact of “sunset-ing” this body of law would be an undertaking at any time. It will take a Herculean effort when you consider the other very pressing issues currently going on at the moment.

Rising inflation and the cost of living crisis with which millions of households are struggling. A land war in Eastern Europe. The impact on the NHS of a two-year pandemic that upended many of our lives.

Business groups are concerned. Recently a collection of them wrote to the Business Secretary, Grant Shapps, warning him that the Bill and its tight deadline to review EU-derived laws created ‘unnecessary uncertainty’ for businesses, who are already grappling with new trading relationships with countries on the continent.

The Bill does include a fallback option, which enables ministers to choose to delay the sunset clause to 23 June 2026 - something Which? is encouraging government departments to make use of to allow time for a proper review of regulations.

While that option is preferable to the current cliff-edge of reviewing legislation, Which? believes there is a better, third way, to ensure current legislation can be reviewed so that it brings real benefits for businesses and consumers.

Instead of automatically removing regulations with the uncertainty this creates for businesses and consumers, the Bill could instead set a deadline of 23 June 2026 for a proper review of retained EU legislation. This would give the government the time to thoroughly review and reform our laws which in a number of cases need improving to support businesses and consumers.

This is particularly the case for a number of our laws which simply haven't kept pace with the way we now live our lives increasingly online. Equally, where there are cumbersome or unnecessary regulations on businesses, they could be removed.

Consumers need clear rights and continued protection and businesses yearn for clarity - but it’s been a difficult search for the latter over the past six years as businesses adjust to new trading relationships with their closest neighbours. Rushing the process of changing thousands of laws would not be in consumers or businesses interests.

Rocio Concha is Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy