Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Trees Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trees (CB)]

My Lords, the Bill sets out considerable detail on the legalistic process of dealing with retained EU law, which noble, and noble and learned, Lords are rightly examining, and will continue to examine, in great detail. But the Bill says absolutely nothing about specific items of law.

I will focus on the areas within the remit of Defra and get down to some specifics. As we have heard, the department has by far the biggest burden of legislation to consider from the current dashboard of over 1,700 pieces of legislation, encompassing animal health and welfare and the environment, matters of great concern to the UK public and critical for trade. While the Bill aims to retain, amend or revoke retained EU law, according to that which is “right for the UK”—which is perfectly fair and reasonable—there is as yet little indication of which laws are going to be judged “right for the UK”.

In the light of the absence of specifics in the Bill, my points will be a series of questions; while the Minister may not be able to answer them today, I hope he will respond to them by letter. It is difficult, from the current dashboard, to determine how many pieces of legislation have been reviewed by Defra and may be accepted, for example, as unchanged. On Defra’s legislative burden, can the Minister tell us where it currently stands on assessing the 1,781 REULs? What additional resources has Defra been given to cover this vast workload? I also note that an extension of the sunset beyond 2023 is possible for England, but not for the devolved Administrations. Yet so many of the relevant laws are devolved competencies, so how will His Majesty’s Government assist the devolved nations in dealing with this in the very limited time available?

The UK has played an important role in developing the 44 retained animal welfare laws, and, given our pride in the high standards we have in the UK, can we assume that most, if not all, of these will be accepted into UK law unchanged? Who will decide whether to accept, amend or revoke the many hundreds of laws and regulations before they are presented to Parliament as SIs, at which point of course we will have very limited opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny? Transparency here is essential for the credibility of the process, so can the Minster tell us who will decide, how they will decide, and when they will decide?

A particular concern relates to the REACH regulations, which require animal testing for the safety of chemicals and so have animal welfare implications. Will there be mutual recognition of testing, either in the UK or the EU, so as to avoid the replication of animal testing?

On food safety, has the Food Standards Agency been given the resources to cope with the huge number of legislative adjustments that will be required concerning food safety and quality?

Finally, on trade, the requirement for export health certificates to our biggest single export market for animals and animal products has ballooned from about 20,000 a year to over 200,000 a year. Will legislative changes consequential to the Bill add to this regulatory burden or reduce it? If they will reduce it—how?

I have asked a few questions, but they are only a fraction of the thousands of questions that the Bill raises.