The bonfire of EU law, long threatened by extreme Brexiteers, is coming to the House of Commons this week.
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill will introduce sunset clauses for more than 2,400 laws, meaning they will automatically cease to have force at the end of 2023, whether they have been replaced with domestic legislation or not. This means whole areas of our national life from the quality of our air and water to our right not to be exploited at work could vanish in a puff of smoke. This is the way the Singapore-on-Thames of Rees-Mogg’s fantasy becomes a reckless and damaging reality.
So what can you do? Make sure your MP votes to block this destructive law!
Green MP Caroline Lucas has put down a ‘reasoned amendment’, a parliamentary form of words explaining why Parliament should not allow this law to make any further progress. Effectively it would stop this dangerous legislation in its tracks.
As the amendment explains, the law
‘risks endangering environmental and public health; could lead to thousands of pieces of essential legislation on workers’ rights, consumer standards and environmental protections being eroded; constitutes the most significant threat to environmental law in recent UK history; would give Ministers significant executive powers to remove or weaken legislation and could lead to a deregulatory race to the bottom; and threaten the delivery of the UK’s climate and environmental targets, rather than taking the action necessary to protect and restore nature and limit global temperatures to 1.5 degrees.’
The bill also rides roughshod over the devolved nations of Scotland and Wales and enables the removal of protective legislation without any parliamentary scrutiny.
Leading lawyers have sounded the alarm over this law including one former UK government legal official, responsible for designing the concept of EU-retained law for Theresa May, who branded the move as ‘anti-democratic’ and ‘completely barking’.
Please tell your MP you do not want them to vote for this destructive legislation and ask them to support Caroline Lucas’s reasoned amendment.
You can find the text of the bill here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0156/220156.pdf
Caroline Lucas’s amendment:
Caroline Lucas
That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill because while it makes provision relating to retained EU law, it risks endangering environmental and public health; could lead to thousands of pieces of essential legislation on workers’ rights, consumer standards and environmental protections being eroded; constitutes the most significant threat to environmental law in recent UK history; would give Ministers significant executive powers to remove or weaken legislation and could lead to a deregulatory race to the bottom, rather than upholding the 2019 Conservative manifesto commitment to maintain high standards; risks breaching the UK’s commitments under the UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement; creates an unnecessary cliff edge because the sunset clause laid out in the bill would automatically revoke legislation on 31st December 2023 which could lead to significant gaps in the UK’s legislative framework; could have potentially far-reaching impacts on the UK’s environment, workers and businesses, of which the Government has not published an assessment; will have major and hugely uncertain impacts on devolved competences, undermines Parliamentary scrutiny and fails to provide a process for legislation to be properly considered, updated and strengthened; would create an unstable operating environment for businesses; will come at significant cost to the Treasury at a time of economic uncertainty for the UK; and threatens the delivery of the UK’s climate and environmental targets, rather than taking the action necessary to protect and restore nature and limit global temperatures to 1.5 degrees.
