Government Drops Unworkable REUL Bill Sunset Clause
Secretary of State for the Department for Business and Trade, Kemi Badenoch, today announced that the Government will drop the sunset date of December 2023 from the Retained EU Law Bill.
The sunset clause had meant that all EU-derived laws would cease to apply from the end of the year. This was clearly untenable, given that this would affect over 2000 laws, and the government has announced today that “with the growing volume of REUL being identified, and the risks of legal uncertainty posed by sunsetting instruments made under EU law, it has become clear that the programme was becoming more about reducing legal risk by preserving EU laws than prioritising meaningful reform.”
The government has proposed a new approach, and will table an amendment in the Lords to replace the sunset clause with in the Bill with a list of the retained EU laws that they intent to revoke under the Bill at the end of 2023.