Retained EU Law Bill

Updates of DBT actions under the REUL Bill.

Further to this news item from 5 October 2022, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has provided updates on actions taken under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.

Throughout the progress of the bill through the normal parliamentary process, the UK Government confirmed that they would no longer intend to sunset all Retained EU legislation but would instead provide a list of legislation which would be revoked.  With this new approach, the bill received the Royal Assent on 29 June 2023.  The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 can be accessed here.

Since September 2021, the government has conducted an ongoing review into the substance of retained EU law (REUL) to determine which departments, policy areas and sectors of the economy contain REUL.  The REUL dashboard showcases the outcome of this review and subsequent further work by departments as an authoritative catalogue of REUL.  Future updates to the dashboard will continue to take place with the latest on the 4 September 2023.

The Retained EU Law Act 2023 contains schedules of legislation which will be revoked at the end of 2023.  Under the Retained EU Law Act 2023, the UK Government may further propose changes in the form of amendments, application or disapplication of the sunset date, and extension of the sunset date.  These must follow due parliamentary procedure and require legislative approval.

On 4 September, the UK government announced the publication of draft legislation intended to make amendments to the Retained EU Law Act 2023.  The Retained EU Law (Revocation and reform) Act 2023 (Revocation and Sunset Disapplication) Regulations 2023 will disapply the sunset date to some operable legislation, as well as propose further legislation for inclusion.

Additionally, the UK government have published a list of SI’s which have been ‘laid’ in Parliament or which are proposed to be laid, which will further change the list of legislation proposed for change or revocation.

All proposed amendments are available here.