The Retained EU Law Bill is not ‘taking back control’, instead it establishes government through executive diktat - Lord Kirkhope

Firstly, there is concern about the “sunset clauses” and the insufficient time allotted to review each piece of legislation. The scale of the task in the proposed time scale is enormous and I am yet to hear a convincing argument why the end of 2023 has been chosen as the date for most EU derived legislation to automatically expire unless it has been specifically restated, revoked, replaced or updated by Ministers.

All of us who have worked on detailed legislation know that this is an inadequate time frame. There is concern that the civil service has insufficient capacity to effectively deal with all this legislation by the end of the year. It will undoubtedly create a distraction from other, more vital work, that the Government should be focusing on.

An arbitrary deadline of less than 11 months creates a danger that, as the default position, swathes of retained EU law will unknowingly expire, leading to gaps in the law, important protections inadvertently dropping off the statute book and other unintended consequences.

To date over 3,700 retained EU laws have been revealed but the Government has acknowledged the list is not exhaustive. Less than two weeks ago another 1,000 were added to the list (caused in part by the National Archives discovering 1,400 laws last December) and goodness knows how many more there might be.

My second concern is that the Bill places too much power in the hands of Ministers and Whitehall. Provisions will again allow the Government to amend or revoke retained EU law by means of secondary legislation – so called “Henry VIII powers” - effectively sidelining Parliament, removing any form of scrutiny or the need for any wider consultation.

The Government has provided very little guidance about how or to what extent these powers might be exercised nor has there been any meaningful attempt to assess the Bill’s practical impact. It is concerning that the Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) has called the Impact Assessment conducted by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy “not fit for purpose”.

The breadth of legislation affected is reflected by the number of groups who have expressed concerns – the National Farmers Union, the Bar Council, the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Wildlife Trust, Trade Unions, Environmental Groups, the CBI and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

As a lawyer, my third concern is with the legal confusion and uncertainty – and consequential impact on the integrity of the Union – that the Bill will cause. The proposed legislation can result in varying interpretations of the law by different courts and the application of different regulations across the constituent nations of the United Kingdom. The power to extend “sunset clauses” is the exclusive power for UK Ministers yet the power to remove a “sunset clause” entirely is granted to both UK and devolved Ministers. This will not only upset the delicate balance of the devolution settlements but will also result in difficulties under the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020.

A vast majority of retained EU law, which the UK - and myself when an MEP – helped to shape, is actually working well and plays a vital role for consumer protections including: food and product safety, aviation safety, preventing the trafficking of illegal weapons and many others.

Surely the right approach would be to look at the small proportion of retained EU law that the Government believes is not working and rewrite it under primary legislation and not what the Government now proposes.

I cannot see how these proposals could be of the slightest benefit to our region or its people. Quite the reverse; as apart from everything else I have said it will likely create greater burdens and angst for our businesses, both large and small, and deteriorate the rights that we have come to enjoy.

Supporting the bill in its current form is akin to signing a blank cheque; we do not know how many pieces of legislation will be affected nor what they are.

The Bill is not ‘taking back control’. It places power in Whitehall and establishes government effectively through executive diktat. I acknowledge that there are areas of the law that need improving but this must be done in a better, considered manner, with parliament playing a full role and a proper review process in place and certainly without a self-imposed arbitrary cliff edge.

Lord Kirkhope was previously MEP for Yorkshire and H umber.