As you know, the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 repealed the European Communities Act 1972,which gave effect to EU law in the UK, and converted EU law into UK law. To avoid an abrupt transition and provide certainty for people and businesses, some EU legislation remained on the statute book.
The intention of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is to make it easier to preserve, repeal or amend legilsation that was never intended to sit on our statute book indefinitely. There is no intent to diminish the rights and protections of UK citizens. This is an enabling bill that will make it possible to tailor legislation to the particular needs of the British economy. In addition, the Bill includes a targeted and limited extension power to 2026, as the Prime Minister has indicated.
On the issue of maternity rights, which some have raised, our high standards are not dependent on us mirroring the same rules as the EU. Rather, the UK has gone further and moved faster than the EU in the past. For instance, we provide a year of maternity leave with the option to convert to shared parental leave to enable parents to share care, whilst the EU minimum maternity leave is just fourteen weeks. There also exist other examples where this Government has committed more maternity support to mothers than the EU minimum requirements.
More generally, there is no intention of diluting workers’ rights, having raised domestic standards over recent years to make them some of the highest in the world. These high standards were never dependent on our membership of the EU, and in numerous areas the UK provides for stronger protections for workers than are required by EU law; for instance, the entitlement of UK workers to receive 5.6 weeks of annual leave compared to the EU requirement of 4 weeks.
As regards environmental standards, the UK is proud to be a world leader in environmental protections. This Government has clear environmental and climate goals, such as those set out in the Environment Act 2021, the 25-Year Environment Plan and the Net Zero Strategy respectively. We are committed to delivering our legally binding target to halt nature’s decline by 2030.
The review into the substance of retained EU law in a cross-government collaborative exercise has so far disclosed 2,400 pieces of retained EU law which remain in effect on the UK statute book. Departments are already reviewing the suitability of these pieces of legislation. A dashboard of retained EU law has been published to ensure that there is maximum transparency on the progress of reforming retained EU law, and this will be updated regularly to reflect actions taken.
Preserving, repealing or amending retained EU law will help reform the UK regulatory system and will allow for a tailored regulatory framework that puts consumers first and gives businesses the confidence to innovate and invest in Britain.