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)

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.

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 Financial Times is reporting this morning that a further large number of EU laws has been located by the National Archives. The report is that the end 2023 deadline for revocation of REUL (retained EU law) is now likely to slip, as the scale of the work challenge to replace or reform each instrument builds.

The Bill is currently in Committee stage, as currently drafted Ministers could delay until June 2026, but both dates of December 2023 and June 2026 could now change.

We will nonetheless, list the instruments that will be affected, and load this onto Cardinal Environment Limited EHS Legislation Registers & Checklists in January 2023. We will track the changes to this list and the development of replacement or reformed instruments by using the traffic light system, the same approach we used for the Brexit Consolidated Law project (which is concluded).

I will write further Updates (Blog posts) as more information becomes available on the revocation of REUL.

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.

EU Law Revocation (Britain)

Yesterday 22 September ’22, the UK government introduced its bill to revoke and reform en masse (by 31 Dec 2023) retained EU law and domestic subordinate law documents (statutory instruments – Regulations) that draw their power from sections of the 1972 European Communities Act (specifically section 2(2) or paragraph 1A of Schedule 2).

The revocation and reform bill is here.

I will be outlining in the next (September) Email Alert how we will deal with this in Cardinal Environment EHS Legislation Registers & Checklists (Britain, England, Wales and Scotland).

Re OHS – the impact will be felt on Equipment Regulations (not LOLER), and Product Regulations (including obviously UK REACH and safety data sheets). Also the Working Time Regulations.

But Equipment Use Regulations, COSHH, DSEAR, Carriage of Dangerous Goods, the Management Regulations and the Workplace Regulations will be unaffected.

Re ENV – the impact will be substantial in Waste. Also EIA and Habitats and Species Regulations will be re-written (I had already written about this in the blog). Note the Office for Environmental Protection (England) has an investigation underway into the EIA, SEA and Habitats Regulations. This link gives access to written evidence to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill Committee, which gives further information.

ODS and F-Gas similarly will require new domestic law.

31st December 2023 is the sunset date written into the Bill.

We will set up a document tracking list, with traffic light colours, as we did with the Brexit law changes that operated from 1st Jan 2021 (the Brexit Consolidated Law list).

It is expected that the relevant government departments will commence review of each affected instrument, and that “reformed” domestic law will be enacted. The new document tracking list will identify progress, to customers of our Cardinal Environment EHS Legislation Registers & Checklists. The Email Alerts will Alert of enactment of new instruments.

This is a complex area. If there are further developments, for example to the sunset date, then I will issue further blog posts.

The EU Law revocation extends to all parts of Britain, but ENV legislation is delegated, so variations might emerge (particularly on timescales).

If you have questions, and you are a client, please send your questions to me by email. Questions asked on this blog post will not be answered.

The above is NOT a full description of the instruments affected. Clients will have the document tracking list inserted in their systems in Jan 2023. The specifics of how we will handle this will be in the September Email Alert (as mentioned above).

EU NIP announcements (Northern Ireland)

On 13 October, the EU announced its October 2021 package of proposed measures to amend the Northern Ireland Protocol (to the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement). This October 2021 package is here. (scroll down)

The October 2021 package is a series of “non papers”, these are not binding. The UK has it’s similar not binding “command paper” issued July – here. Both sets of documents contain a certain amount of spin.

UKG (UK Government) and the EU will discuss the documents over the next weeks. In the meantime, UKG had already extended indefinitely existing NIP grace periods and this is reflected in UKG Brexit Guidance (instructions) found collated in Cardinal Environment EHS Legislation Registers and Checklists.

The Northern Ireland Protocol regulates Northern Ireland’s access to the EU single market, but also affects it’s arrangements with the rest of the UK. This has since 1 Jan 2021 impacted on goods movements from Britain (GB) to Northern Ireland (UKG itself relaxed NIP rules for movement from Northern Ireland to GB); and it’s state aid rules.

Governance of the Northern Ireland Protocol arrangements is currently by the ECJ or CJEU as the court is known as in the EU. It is also an ask of UKG that this governance be altered and the role of the ECJ removed. This was a UKG ask at the time of negotiation of the Withdrawal Agreement.

In the event that agreement is not reached between the parties (UKG unilateral extension of grace periods is itself not agreed), it is open to one or the other to take unilateral action.

Further announcements are awaited.

Further Border Control Delays (UK)

The UK government recently announced that movement of goods from GB to Northern Ireland (occurring under the grace arrangements in the Northern Ireland Protocol – NIP) would continue in the current manner indefinitely.

The UK government also recently announced that CE marked goods would continue to circulate in GB for the entire 2022. CE marked goods circulate in Northern Ireland by virtue of the NIP. This was included in the August Email Alert.

This morning, the UK government confirmed – here

• The requirement for pre-notification of agri-food imports will be introduced on 1 January 2022 as opposed to 1 October 2021.

• The new requirements for Export Health Certificates, which were due to be introduced on 1 October 2021, will now be introduced on 1 July 2022.

• Phytosanitary Certificates and physical checks on SPS goods at Border Control Posts, due to be introduced on 1 January 2022, will now be introduced on 1 July 2022.

• The requirement for Safety and Security declarations on imports will be introduced as of 1 July 2022 as opposed to 1 January 2022.

The timetable for the removal of the current easements in relation to full customs controls and the introduction of customs checks remains unchanged from the planned 1 January 2022.

FTA UK & Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway (UK)

Thursday 8th July, trade ministers from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with the UK. Conclusion of negotiations on an FTA had been announced on 4th June, and Norway had published the text (English language starts at page 105).

The UK trade minister made a statement to Parliament (8th July) – here.

Norway’s minister of trade and industry remarks at 4th June press conference on the matter – here, Norway’s press release (4th June) here.

The signed legal text will be published in the UK shortly, along with the Explanatory Memorandum that is a statutory requirement under the Constitutional Reform and Governance (CRaG) Act.

The Explanatory Memorandum provides the context, explaining what the new treaty is meant to achieve, what legislation (if any) will be needed to implement it, when it will take effect, the financial implications, and the territorial application of the agreement.

I will blog post again when the further documents are published.