Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

[Bob Mehew]

Last week the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill came back into the news over the intent of the government to reduce the range of EU legislation that they intend to be impacted by the bill. The thought crossed my mind as to what legislation (both acts of parliament and statutory instruments) which is of interest to cavers might be affected by this proposed legislation. There is a web site covering UK legislation and a simple search revealed that there were nearly 200,000 different pieces of legislation originating from the EU which impact on UK legislation. So that is not a sensible way to identify such legislation.

But starting with acts and statutory instruments impacted by the bill begs the question is my list of existing legislation of interest complete. The few which immediately came to my mind in no particular order were the:

Mines and Quarries Act and the Mines Regulations,
Wildlife and Countryside Act and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations,
Countryside and Rights of Way Act,
Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act,
Occupiers’ Liability Act,
Work at Height Regulations, the Ionising Radiation Regulations and the Adventure Activities Licensing Regulations.

I am specifically ignoring legislation like that related to safeguarding vulnerable persons and data protection where there is no specific caver twist. (And in any case, there will be far more vocal voices concerned with that type of legislation.)

So a simple question, what acts, regulations, orders in Council and so on are you aware of which are of interest to cavers, mine explorers and similar people? Suggestions of such legislation would be welcomed. (What would not be welcomed is comments relating to B####t.)

 

[Fjell]

I was under the impression it does not apply to primary legislation, and all of the above are primary. Primary cannot just lapse. This is mostly all the stuff that went through on the nod without a vote. Unfortunately we have a shed load of stuff that refers to EU directives that can change but are no longer relevent to the UK. This probably started out as an attempt to to reduce the workload, but has now wandered off. I seriously doubt much will change in reality.

 

[Bob Mehew]

I was under the impression it does not apply to primary legislation, and all of the above are primary. Primary cannot just lapse. This is mostly all the stuff that went through on the nod without a vote. Unfortunately we have a shed load of stuff that refers to EU directives that can change but are no longer relevent to the UK. This probably started out as an attempt to to reduce the workload, but has now wandered off. I seriously doubt much will change in reality.

I am afraid your impression is wrong. Although the vast majority of EU directives were implemented as statutory instruments, there is a fair amount implement by making small changes to existing acts. My understanding is that the bill if implemented will enable any such piece of legislation to be wiped away without a requirement to replace it. Whether that will leave a hole or allow the original approach to come back into law is unclear. By the way half of my list are not primary legislation, that is an act of parliament.

 

[RobinGriffiths]

Someone down on Mendip must have Rees Mogg's phone number. Give him a call. I'm sure he'll be most definitive in his response.

 

[ChrisB]

Although the vast majority of EU directives were implemented as statutory instruments, there is a fair amount implement by making small changes to existing acts. My understanding is that the bill if implemented will enable any such piece of legislation to be wiped away without a requirement to replace it.

My understanding of the Bill is that there are two main areas of change.

(a) There is "sunsetting" of EU-derived subordinate legislation and retained direct EU legislation, which is a blanket scrapping of anything in those categories that isn't specifically retained. None of that is primary.

(b) There are specific changes to primary legislation listed in the Schedules; only those bits of primary legislation specifically listed will change.

But I haven't read the whole thing, so I may be wrong.

 

[Bob Mehew]

That was a narrow escape, see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/smarter-regulation-unveiled-to-cut-red-tape-and-grow-the-economy . To quote " we are amending the REUL bill to be clear which laws we intend to revoke at the end of this year".

 

[Russell Myers]

That was a narrow escape, see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/smarter-regulation-unveiled-to-cut-red-tape-and-grow-the-economy . To quote " we are amending the REUL bill to be clear which laws we intend to revoke at the end of this year".

Rees Mogg ain't happy which must mean it is "the right thing to do" !