The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was announced by the government on 22 September 2022. If enacted, it would have required all retained EU law (REUL) to be expressly transferred into UK law by 31 December 2023, or any such legislation would cease to be law in the UK. This would have impacted a range of employment regulations, including the Working Time Regulations 1998, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) and Agency Worker Regulations.
Unsurprisingly, there was a large amount of opposition to the bill, not least because of the scope of legislation that would be impacted.
As anticipated, on 10 May 2023, the government announced in a statement made by Secretary of State for the Department for Business and Trade, Kemi Badenoch, that it will be abandoning the current sunset clause in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.
Whilst the government has already revoked or reformed over 1,000 EU laws since Brexit, the statement advises that the current bill will be amended to contain a list of the retained EU laws that the government intends to revoke on 31 December 2023. Under the amendment to the bill, any legislation that is not included on that list will remain valid.
The statement sets out that the change will “provide[s] certainty for business by making it clear which regulations will be removed from our statue book, instead of highlighting only the REUL that would be saved” and that the government is “committed to lightening the regulatory burden on businesses and helping to spur economic growth…”
The full statement can be found at parliament.uk.