London, (Parliament Politics Magazine) – The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing a new battle, this time in the House of Lords, which senior government sources suggest will attempt to frustrate government efforts to remove around 4000 pieces of EU legislation from the statute booksby the end of the year.
The government had pledged to pass legislation which would allow ministers to decide which EU laws to retain, which to scrap on which to change, however a senior government source told the Times newspaper that it was “inevitable” that the government would have to abandon its plans for the legislation When it reaches the Lords due to significant opposition.
The government source predicted that the legislation would be delayed or dropped altogether saying: “I can’t see it [the deadline] surviving.”
They continued: “We’ll have to compromise when it gets to the Lords. If the object is to review all these regulations properly rather than just cut and paste them into UK law then we’ll need more time. It’s an entirely arbitrary deadline. We’re going to have to make a concession to get it through.”
The newspaper also reported that several government departments, such as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Transport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are already preparing to extend the deadline to review the laws and regulations until 2026 and that some ministers including Grant Shapps are sympathetic to slower timetable.
But any delay is likely to anger the Brexiteers in Parliament, who have become increasingly alarmed at the direction of the Government on Brexit. Their concerns have been heightened after comments made by senior government figures, such as chancellor Jeremy Hunt who seem to want a much softer Brexit than previously agreed by the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The Brexiteers are concerned that a softer Brexit, which sees the UK much more closely aligned with the EU and its rules will stop the benefits from leaving the Bloc being realised.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former business secretary, said: “”Thereis no reason to give in to the unelected remainers in the House of Lords who have consistently wanted to thwart Brexit.
“Repealing EU law and replacing it with domestic law seven years after we voted to leave is not especially ambitious and departments ought to be ready to do it. It was not going to be hard for BEIS when I was there but there was a bit of whingeing from life’s eternal hand-wringers.”
The Prime Minister had said he would “review or repeal” all of the EU laws in the first 100 days of his premiership, but this was quickly dropped, as the scale of the task of reviewing4,000 EU-derived laws became clear.
Repealing each regulation or law could take months as subject to multiple detailed questions and sub-questions.
Opposition to the changes are being supported by a powerful group of organisations, including the Trades Union Congress(TUC), the Institute of Directors (IoD) and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, who say thatthe proposed changes would cause difficulties across multiplesectors.
In a letter to Shapps the alliance said the plans would create uncertainty and an additional “burden” on businesses.
Roger Barker, the director of policy and governance at the IoD, said: “Getting to grips with any resulting regulatory changes will impose a major new burden on business which it could well do without.”
The group have also warned that removing the laws could impact on workers’ rights and environmental protections, overturning “decades of case law” and making the “interpretation of the law highly uncertain”.
A BEIS spokesman said: “The programme to review, revoke and reform retained EU law is under way and there are no plans to change the sunset deadline for any government departments.”
ENDS