Members of the House of Lords have started their detailed check of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill in committee stage.
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill will enable the government to implement policies in its Benefits of Brexit report, dated January 2022, allowing it to repeal or assimilate retained EU law (REUL) and remove its supremacy in the UK legal system by the end of 2023, including its usage by the courts and small businesses.
Committee stage is the first chance for line by line examination of the bill. Three days of committee stage have been scheduled so far (although dates are subject to change):
Thursday 23 February.
Tuesday 28 February.
Thursday 2 March.
In the Government’s words, the Bill “facilitates the amendment, repeal and replacement of [retained EU law] by the end of 2023, and assimilates [retained EU law] remaining in force after that date by removing the special EU law features attached to it.”
The Bill does this by:
Establishing a sunset date of the end of 2023 by which most retained EU law will no longer have effect in UK law.
Repealing the principle of supremacy of EU law.
Transforming any retained EU law that remains after the end of 2023 into “assimilated law”.
Facilitating departures from retained EU case law.
Modifying the way in which retained EU law is interpreted.
Creating powers to amend, repeal and replace retained EU law by secondary legislation.
Repealing the Business Impact Target.
In this report, the Lords set out responses to points of the Bill stressing that Government must provide an exceptional justification for the use of skeleton legislation (giving UK ministers and ministers of the devolved administrations the power to revoke, restate or replace a large volume of EU law), particularly where it can be described as “hyper-skeletal”.
The House may wish to seek further justifications for the Bill’s broad delegations of powers to ministers.
House of Lords February 2023
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