This Bill makes it easier to repeal and replace retained EU law and abolish EU law special status. It will not diminish the rights and protections of UK citizens. The UK has gone further and faster than the EU in areas such as maternity leave, holiday pay and environmental standards. These home-grown standards were never dependent on EU membership.
To preserve, repeal or amend each of these 2,400 pieces of retained EU law individually would be impractical and take decades of primary legislation. I have been assured by my colleague, Nus Ghani MP that a publicly available dashboard will offer maximum transparency about the nature and progress of reforms to retained EU law.
Each Department will be responsible for reviewing its own retained EU law. Taking this step will help us reform the UK regulatory system and will allow us to create a new agile and pro-growth regulatory framework that puts consumers first and gives businesses the confidence to innovate and invest in Britain.
These reforms will remove those regulations that are unduly burdensome, outdated and no longer fit for purpose and replace them with more appropriate regulations that are proportionate, of a high standard and support the competitiveness of the UK economy.