Thousands of EU laws could be scrapped at the end of this year, under a bill that the government says will enable the UK to ‘take full advantage of the benefits of Brexit’.
The Retained EU Law Bill is currently progressing through Parliament. If it is passed, various laws concerning consumer rights and product safety could be automatically ‘sunsetted’ at the end of 2023, unless the government specifically chooses to keep them.
Here, we outline what the bill is all about and explain why Which? believes the government should extend the deadline.
What is the Retained EU Law Bill?
When the UK left the European Union in January 2020, thousands of EU laws were passed into UK law. They were kept during the transition period, and are now due to expire at the end of 2023 under the terms of the Retained EU Law Bill.
The Bill affects laws covering everything from consumer rights to employment, health, environment and agriculture regulations. Some estimates place the number of affected laws at around 4,000. Some of the most significant themes are as follows:
- A large number of regulations affect food safety, including hygiene requirements for food businesses and meat safety controls.
- Numerous regulations relate to product safety, including obligations for products placed on the market to be safe and for warning labels to be included on toys.
- Some affected consumer rights laws are fundamental to the way the economy operates. These include laws on cancellation rights, upfront information and hidden costs.
Under the current plans, ministers and civil servants must assess every individual law before the end of 2023, deciding whether to keep, change or scrap it. If nothing is decided, laws will be ‘sunsetted’ automatically.
The Bill passed through the House of Commons earlier this week and will now face scrutiny in the House of Lords.
Fears raised over weakening consumer protections
Concerns have been raised about whether the Bill is realistic. The legislation would require departments to select and transcribe any individual law they want to keep, potentially resulting in huge workloads for civil servants. Amendments from the House of Lords could also slow down the Bill, making the timeframe even tighter.
There are fears that the huge workload means some important laws could be ‘missed’, resulting in them being automatically removed at the end of the year. A cross-party group of Welsh Senedd members recently asked the government to reconsider the plans amid concerns that health, environment and agricultural regulations could be affected.
Other industry groups have also expressed doubts. The Welsh NHS Confederation has warned that the changes could affect nutritional information on food packaging, and the UK Environmental Law Association says environmental law and policy could be weakened.
The wording of the Bill does provide some leeway for government departments. Under its terms, individual departments can choose to push back the deadline until 2026 for any specific regulations they oversee.
Sunset clause should be removed
Which? believes the Bill puts a large number of consumer regulations at risk. The scale of the task and timescales will also put serious strain on the civil service and regulators. In the worst case, ‘forgotten’ but important legislation could be unintentionally removed.
We believe the government should, at a minimum, remove the 2023 sunset clause and fall back on the 23 June 2026 sunset specified in the bill.
Better still, the government could turn the 2026 sunset into a deadline for reviewing laws, rather than an automatic cut-off. This would put the emphasis on reviewing how consumer rights could be improved rather than removed.
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source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/consumer-rights-and-safety-laws-at-risk-of-being-scrapped-under-new-legislation-azzZF1N8tg2E