Scrapping retained EU laws too quickly could damage UK interests, warn Tory MPs
In 2016, we campaigned passionately to leave the European Union. We believed then, and still do, that our great United Kingdom can do so much better without the top-down one size fits all European rulebook that so often wasn’t working for people and businesses across our country.
So it is hugely welcome that the Prime Minister - himself a determined Brexiteer - has made clear that in future the UK’s statute book will not include deference to the supremacy of EU law or EU legal principles.
When it comes to our laws, we need to question whether they are necessary, appropriate, proportionate and beneficial to the UK, our people and our businesses.
We’ve already started to take advantage of the opportunities that we have as an independent country. The Data Bill will reduce the burdens of GDPR and give us our own UK framework.
The Procurement Bill will help UK SMEs win more of £300 billion worth of government procurement. We have left the Common Agricultural Policy and passed the Agriculture Act, putting in place a domestic policy that actually delivers for our farmers – rather than dropping disproportionate fines on them for trivial ‘errors’.
As part of the drive for deregulation, the Government has also announced improvements to employment law which could help save businesses around £1 billion a year whilst safeguarding the rights of workers. This will include cutting unnecessary red tape on recording working hours.
We are repealing or reforming vast swathes of the laws that we have carried over from the EU – with over 1,000 already scrapped or reformed and a further 500 being removed by legislation this year.
This week, the Government has published a schedule setting out almost 600 more EU laws that will be scrapped on 31 December this year.
Many of these laws are, frankly, completely irrelevant to the UK. Take the Port Services Directive. It was designed for European ports that are publicly owned; here in the UK our ports are privately owned.
The schedule set out this week is just the start of our ambition for reform of retained EU law. We have the power to continue to amend retained EU laws over the coming months and years, so that more complex and needless regulation can be revoked or reformed at a later date as circumstances require.
The schedule also means that businesses have the certainty about change that is vital for their planning. They can be absolutely clear as to what laws and regulations are not being kept.
For us as Brexiteers, the schedule also gives us the reassurance we wanted that the supremacy and special status of retained EU law will end on 31 December – fulfilling our manifesto commitment.
But, the schedule is not a limit to our ambition for reform. A programme to remove retained EU law too quickly risks unintended consequences that could damage UK interests, so we will continue to review all of our legislation to remove unnecessary burdens to the UK economy as part of a truly conservative vision of a post-Brexit Britain.
As Conservatives we want to make sure that we capitalise on the competitive advantages the UK has now that we are no longer held back by membership of the EU.
We need to keep asking which regulations have worked, which unnecessary regulations can be scrapped, and which can be reformed. We know that smarter regulation leads to stronger growth and a stronger economy, which in turn will drive up living standards for people across the country.
We need to get this right, and the clarity provided by the schedule will help. We are determined to deliver on our promises and drive our country forward.
We must focus on faster and better reform, to deliver growth and prosperity across our United Kingdom.
So we are fully backing the Prime Minister’s plan to consign EU law to history, as part of our drive to make sure that Britain is the best place to live, work and do business in the world.
