REUL Bill Further Update (UK)

I refer readers to my earlier blog post of this morning. The Report Stage debate is ongoing at the House of Lords – a number of aspects are being clarified –

(1) The Schedule (Revocation Schedule) is the list of those items that will be removed from the statute book at the end of this year. The Clause introducing this Schedule and removing the sunset clause and its extension is not yet voted on, but it has already been amended by vote to ensure each item on the said Revocation Schedule is referred to the Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament for scrutiny, and if found to be a substantive deletion, is then debated on the floor of each House and if not approved for deletion, is then kept.

(2) All EU-era law will have its attribution context and it’s interpretative referencing to EU rights removed at the end of the year, regardless, so to that extent the sunset clause persists. Further amendment of this Clause 4 agreed by vote of the House of Lords will require the relevant minister to make a statement before the end of October 2023 to, as the case may be, each House of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru or the Northern Ireland Assembly, identifying any rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies or procedures that the relevant national authority has decided not to restate, reproduce or replace before the end of 2023 and that it wishes to be revoked at the end of 2023. In this manner, Parliament & devolved legislatures rather than the Executive would have final say on revocation of rights, powers & liabilities of remaining retained law (assimilated law) at end of 2023.

(3) Any EU-era law not listed in the Revocation Schedule will be assimilated. And this assimilated EU-era law will be able to be changed, modified, including having its title changed and will certainly undergo minor amendment to remove its attribution/interpretative context up to 23rd June 2026 (listed in other clauses to the Bill). This date is not sunsetted. But the intention (as stated by Lord Callanan for the Government) is that the principle and the policy covered by the assimilated EU-era document is kept.

I may amend this Post further online. If I do, the reader must return to check the online version, as it will not be posted out to inboxes.

REUL Bill Update (UK)

This Bill (in my blog before) is now before the House of Lords, today and on Wednesday, for its Report Stage (one of the last stages before Royal Assent).

The UK Government recently confirmed it would delete the 31st December 2023 sunset clause, and its extension date in 2026, except for a list of EU-era documents. This list is now published – it would be an inserted Schedule to the Bill.

Find here, the collated amendments to the Report Stage of the REUL Bill, including the contents of the proposed new Schedule (of deletions by 31st Dec 2023). Note: the UK Government (Lord Callanan) has also proposed to enable devolved governments to remove items from his proposed Schedule.

On this Schedule (list of deletions by 31st Dec 2023) – (assuming Royal Assent of the list as is) –

(1) Removal of Annex 8 to the UK CLP document – here is a link to EU ECHA on the purpose of Annex 8. The UK CLP document is a version of the EU-era CLP (Classification, Labelling and Packaging) Regulation.

(2) Deletion of recent changes to Annex 1 of the EU-era PIC Regulation – a 2019 local instrument made changes to Annex 1 but these are not showing on the legislation dot gov dot uk website, and so we will need to produce a Cardinal Environment text consolidation for this PIC document. Annex 1 lists the chemicals covered by the EU-era PIC Regulation.

(3) Deletion of various EU-era instruments regulating establishing standardised application information when GMOs are to be deliberately released to the market or the environment. The UK now has a Precision Breeding Act regulating PBOs (Precision Bred Organisms) as distinct from GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). Under the new Act, the developer no longer “applies” but “notifies”. But developers still must “apply” under EU-era rules for the deliberate release of GMOs into the market/into the environment. It would appear DEFRA intends (by deleting the EU-era rules in this area) to change this to a “notification” process. The GMO register (of genetic modifications in GMOs) being lost in the REUL deletion process would be replaced by the PBO register under the Act. PBOs and GMOs would seemingly co-exist, in regulation terms.

The above would need to be achieved by issue of Statutory Instrument. Hopefully, further information will be available at that point.

We will amend the REUL List showing on client systems. and we will change the colour coding. However, we will retain the REUL List as a whole, since changes may occur to these EU-era rules over time, but not subject to a deadline.

Also note – the UK Government made two additional announcements (at the time of announcing the removal of the 31st Dec 2023 sunset deadline and it’s extension) –

(A) (EU-era) Working Time Regulations – these would be amended a bit, but the 48 hour week would be retained and also the combined leave provisions would still exceed the minimum in the EU.

(B) (EU-era) TUPE Regulations – these would be adjusted a bit. These rules are outside our remit.

UK REACH Extension (UK)

Last year (2022) the UK Government consulted on extending the registration deadlines, from the current deadlines, the first of which is as soon as October 2023.

The UK REACH Regulation contains transitional provisions that allow companies to submit initial ‘notification’ data in order to continue trading and then subsequently provide the full registration data. The transitional provisions apply to those that were registrants, downstream users or distributors under EU REACH before UK REACH came into effect. The current deadlines for completing this transitional registration process, depending on tonnage and hazard profile of the substance, are set down in Article 127P of UK REACH, and the first of these is 27 October 2023.

The UK Government published its consultation response in November 2022. It did agree to extend the deadlines. But the legislation to put this into effect is not yet issued.

We will notify subscribers to Cardinal Environment EHS Legislation Registers & Checklists, in the monthly Email Alert, as soon as this legislation has been enacted. In the meantime, questions about the deadlines should be addressed to the HSE.

The November 2022 UK Government consultation response is here.

Please note: the UK REACH legislative instrument (a Brexit amended EU-era document) is currently on the list for deletion in the REUL Project. However, we now understand that the REUL Project will remove a smaller number of EU-era documents than the current Bill wording requires, and possibly the sunset clause could itself be removed. We await the UK Governments tabled amendments to the REUL Bill, which will return to the Lords 15/17 May for its Report stage, for the detail on this.

REUL Bill Update (UK)

The FT is reporting this morning that the (government’s) BEIS Secretary of State has told Brexiter Tory MPs the sunset clause will be removed from the bill: approx 800 EU-era laws will be removed by 31st Dec with the majority retained.

We await publication of the government’s bill amendments for the detail. Subscribers to Cardinal Environment Legislation Registers & Checklists can see a working list of the large number of EU-era laws that would be deleted if the current REUL bill wording is not changed. We will update this list when further detail is available.

The REUL bill is due back in the Lords 15/17 May for the Report stage (the last stage before returning to the Commons and bill assent). Note: these dates are not published.

REUL Bill UPDATE (UK)

UPDATE : this bill (report stage) is back in the House of Lords list for 15/17th May 2023

*** the REUL bill has been removed from the list of House of Lords forthcoming business.

Next stage to be confirmed, but likely not before mid May.

EU Law Revocation (UK)

Yesterday the REUL bill had its Third Reading in the House of Commons, and now goes to the House of Lords. To remind, it’s a UK bill extending to all parts of the UK. It’s unamended, save for a government amendment that will make any document surviving the process to be known as an “assimilated” instrument.

At Third Reading, the government confirmed the following –

(1) up to 4,000 existing instruments on the UK statute base could be affected by the REUL bill project, they said 3,200 instruments had already been verified as within the scope of the project (the government accepted its (public) dashboard shows 2,400, some already revoked)

(2) the (above) dashboard (here) hitherto moribund, would be updated possibly by the end of this month

(3) standards could rise, despite the REUL bill regulatory burden stipulations

(4) devolved governments could reissue the sunsetted laws themselves within their capacities (no announcement re Northern Ireland which has no current government)

Reminder: the REUL bill will sunset (revoke) in scope existing instruments by 31st December 2023. The bill enables a Minister or a devolved administration to exempt an instrument or a part of an instrument from sunset before that date, and thereby preserve it.

The bill gives an extension possibility, by regulation of a Minister (not a devolved administration) and only for an instrument or category of instrument specified in that regulation (not a general extension), and only to 23 June 2026.

The bill applies UK wide, but “Northern Ireland law” is out of scope.

It’s now accepted that 4,000 existing instruments are in scope.

As I posted yesterday, the Britain list (of in scope REUL bill affected instruments) is already loaded onto subscribers’ systems. I will now compile the Northern Ireland list, and it will show on subscribers’ systems shortly.

EU Law Revocation (Northern Ireland)

I had earlier written that the REUL Bill does not apply to Northern Ireland. This is incorrect. As currently drafted, the Bill applies to Northern Ireland, and so it’s accommodation of the pre-existing Northern Ireland Protocol is not presently understood.

The Bill is back in Parliament today for its Third Reading in the House of Commons.

I will commence compiling the list of laws pertaining to Northern Ireland affected by the Bill. This will load onto subscribers Northern Ireland systems shortly, and updates included in the monthly Email Alerts. This list will also identify those of the cohort also listed in the Northern Ireland Protocol. If a document is listed in the Northern Ireland Protocol, it also applies in Northern Ireland, even if identified for deletion under the Bill.

Note: the list pertaining to Britain and the devolved administrations in Britain (Scotland and Wales) is already loaded onto subscribers systems for these jurisdictions.

I will Blog post again, if the Government accepts any amendments arising from the Report stage, being debated later today.

The later stages in the Lords (of enactment of this Bill) could also make amendments, that may or may not be accepted by the Government. Further Blogs on the matter can be expected.

New Lighting Products MEPS (Britain)

The UK government is consulting on changes to the 2021 Regulations on lighting products, to put in place more stringent minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) from late 2023.

The existing rules are set out in The Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Lighting Products) Regulations 2021. The 2021 Regulations were, anyway, enacted after 31st Dec 2020 and are not part of the REUL project; but the new MEPS proposed will be more stringent than those applying to lighting products circulating in the EU.

The current deadline to end the circulation of CE marked lighting products on the GB market (31st December 2024) would be brought forward to the date the new GB requirements come into effect.

The consultation is here. The consultation ends on 4th April 2023.

Holiday Entitlement Consultation (Britain)

The UK government is consulting on changes to holiday entitlement for part year and irregular hours workers. The proposal is to amend the Working Time Regulations 1998, which give effect to pre-31 Dec 2020 EU law, to remove the effect of a recent Supreme Court judgment, and in effect to move away from EU law in this respect.

In July 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment on Harpur Trust v Brazel. This case concerned the calculation of holiday pay and entitlement of a permanent part-year worker on a zero-hours contract.

The judgment held that the correct interpretation of the Working Time Regulations 1998 is that holiday entitlement for part-year workers should not be pro-rated so that it is proportionate to the amount of work that they actually perform each year.

Part-year workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of statutory annual leave calculated using a holiday entitlement reference period to determine their average weekly pay, ignoring any weeks in which they did not work. As a result of the judgment, part-year workers are now entitled to a larger holiday entitlement than part-time workers who work the same total number of hours across the year.

The UK government disagrees with this approach, and proposes amending the Working Time Regulations to ensure that holiday entitlement reflect hours worked. The consultation is here.

The consultation closes on 9 March 2023.

EU Law Revocation (Britain) UPDATE

The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (I posted about recently) is in Committee stage, and the Public Bill Committee (the relevant Committee) yesterday has asked for submissions to it – here.

You can see from the link, the purpose of the Bill is to sunset (remove from the statute book) certain types of law by end 2023. In particular, the Bill will completely overhaul a body of UK domestic law known as “retained EU law” (REUL). This is a category of law that came into being as a result of the UK exit from the EU. It includes both Retained EU instruments, and certain domestic laws that gain their authority in a particular way.

Note: when the Committee concludes its consideration of the Bill it is no longer able to receive written evidence and it can conclude earlier than the expected deadline of 5.00pm on Tuesday 22 November.

As I have written in the last Email Alert to clients, we will commence listing the laws to be affected shortly, and this list will display on Cardinal Environment Limited EHS Legislation Registers and Checklists from Jan 2023 (earlier drafts will display earlier) and be subject to tracking through 2023.

A very considerable number of laws will be affected.

We expect most affected laws to be replaced with new laws, covering the same obligations. The tracking evident on Legislation Registers and Checklists will identify progress.

We do not expect that obligations will be removed altogether. If a law is removed without a replacement, we expect the obligations to be inserted by amendment into other pre-existing law, and the tracking will identify this.

Nonetheless, this is a complex process.