Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We have 10 people left and if everybody does about 10 minutes, as Layla did, we should get everybody in.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

On Lords amendment 1, as a strong supporter of Brexit, I am pleased that the Government have already revoked or reformed more than 1,000 EU laws since our exit from the EU. In addition to the list of 587 laws the Government propose to revoke directly through the Bill, the Financial Services and Markets Bill and the Procurement Bill will revoke about a further 500 pieces of retained EU law. That means that more than 2,000 revocations and reforms are already completed or under way.

Overall, the Government are committed to lightening the regulatory burden on businesses and helping to spur economic growth, and the Edinburgh reforms of UK financial services include more than 30 regulatory reforms to unlock investment and boost growth in towns and cities across the UK. It is important, however, that the Government make sure that the process of revocation is done in a way that maximises our competitive advantage. We need to remove any unnecessary regulations we inherited from Brussels over the last 50 years, and to do so as soon as possible. The Bill gives us the unique opportunity to look again at regulations and decide whether they are right for our economy, whether we can remove them, or whether we can reform and improve them to help spur economic growth.