Government plans for a bonfire of EU red tape after Brexit have been dealt another blow after it was discovered it may need to repeal 1,400 more laws than previously thought.
Ministers working with the National Archives found the extra legal text, which takes the grand total of retained EU law on the UK statute book to 3,800 laws rather than 2,400.
Thousands of EU laws were transposed into UK law, with often only minimal changes, when Brexit took legal effect at 11pm on December 31. The move prevented legal gaps in a wide range of regulations after Brexit.
The Government wants to have revised or repealed all those laws by the end of 2023.
But officials have warned that it will be a bureaucratic nightmare because each will require legal advice and consultation with business and other groups, the Financial Times reported.
Grant Shapps, the Business Secretary, is keen to slow down the review because it will need hundreds of extra staff, according to the FT.
Fears Sunak may drop pledge
Rishi Sunak promised to comb through the 2,400 laws in this year’s leadership contest against Liz Truss.
But Mr Sunak has given up on his promise to complete the exercise within 100 days and Brexiteer backbenchers are skittish that he may ditch the idea altogether.
On Monday, Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s Brexit negotiator, warned the UK to ditch plans for a bonfire of EU regulations after Brexit or face new trade barriers to UK goods.
He warned it would pile “even more cost” on British businesses at a time of “severe economic strains” caused by soaring energy and food prices.
“More divergence will carry even more cost and will further deepen the barriers to trade between the EU and the UK,” he said in a speech in London.
The idea of ditching or improving inherited EU law was first mooted as a way of highlighting the “opportunities of Brexit” and was spearheaded by Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Ministers could ask for the deadline for the review to be extended to 2026, under legislation prepared by the former business secretary, who was sacked by Mr Sunak.
Brexiteer backbenchers ‘very unhappy’
The bill is in its committee stage of scrutiny in the House of Commons and could be amended.
Theresa Villiers, the Brexiteer and former environment and Northern Ireland secretary, told the Guardian there were so many laws that it would be very difficult to meet even the 2026 deadline.
David Jones, the MP and former Chairman of the European Research Group of Brexiteer backbenchers, told the FT he would be “very unhappy” at any delay.
In 2021, MPs including former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, published a report identifying some inherited EU laws in need of change.
The Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform called for a repeal of the effective EU ban on gene-edited crops, an overhaul of data protection rules and regulations on financial services and artificial intelligence.
In September that year, the Government said it would change inherited EU laws to allow the crown stamp to return to pint glasses and for imperial measures to be used by traders.
But critics pointed out that the existing laws did not prevent the crown stamp or imperial measures being used and only mandated they were not given the same prominence as the EU mark or metric measurements.
Database of laws
The Government has published a database of retained EU law, which now looks to have underestimated the total number of legal acts from Brussels after 47 years of EU membership.
The database says there are 2,417 retained EU acts. 2,006 of those are unchanged and 182 have been amended. 196 have been repealed and just 33 replaced.
Most of the laws (570) involve the environment, agriculture and food safety and come under the departmental responsibility of Defra.
A total of 424 come under the department of Transport and 374, including post-financial crisis EU regulation, under the Treasury.
Some 318 rules are overseen by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with 228 related to customs and another 208 to work and pensions.
Among the inherited rules are laws for the energy efficiency labelling of washing machines, harmonised standards for railway products, conditions for the import and sale of irradiated food, rules for pensions and statutory maternity pay, and regulations on “dangerous substances and explosive atmospheres” in the workplace.
Other rules include safety regulation for oil and gas boreholes, security at ports, capital gains tax, rules making it illegal for the under 14’s not to wear an adult seatbelt in a car and regulations over sulphur discharges from certain fuels used in shipping.
There are also rules guaranteeing disabled people access to passenger aircraft, ensuring that drinking water is clean and healthy, regulations that mean producers must pay a proportion of the cost of recycling their packaging and a UK version of the EU’s Sewage Sludge Directive.
EU laws for the control of alien species in aquaculture, African Horse Sickness, the sale of seal products, medicines for humans and credit rating agencies and financial conglomerates will also need to be revised by British officials.
Other regulations include EU common rules for technical requirements for electronic road tolling systems, laws making it illegal to refill a faulty vehicle air conditioning system, regulations to minimise noise pollution at airports, minimum rest periods for lorry drivers, and health and safety rules to protect seamen from electromagnetic fields on board ships.
British officials will also need to scrutinise EU rules for silage construction to prevent water pollution, recycling rules for spent batteries, regulations defining what a “fishing vessel” is and a multi-annual plan for bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Labelling rules and standards for wine, exotic diseases in pigs, measures for the recovery of the European eel and rules for the accidental catch of whales, dolphins and porpoises during fishing will also have to come under the microscope.
British goat-keepers will be interested to know if EU rules for the tagging and traceability of the horned animals will survive the scrutiny of the army of UK bureaucrats porting over the lawbooks. So will importers of Turkish seafood, where live bivalve molluscs are subject to additional EU safeguards, which were transposed into British law wholesale.
Officials will also have to look over the list of non-EU countries authorised to supply the UK with edible insects and snails, as well as rules obliging broadcasters of digital television to do so in a widescreen format, footwear labelling and holiday timeshares.
