Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Having witnessed the EU legislative process at first hand as an MEP for six years, I can attest to the fact that it tends to be bedevilled by horse-trading, misunderstanding, ambiguity, vested interests and protectionism. My experience of that process and its often flawed results radicalised me and was a major reason why I decided, when the referendum came, to campaign to leave the EU. I believe that when it comes to regulation, we can do better in this country. We can and must retain our high standards—as every Government Member has said today, including the Minister—but deliver them in a way that is less cumbersome, less bureaucratic and less costly. We can ensure that our rules are properly targeted at the real problems that we want to resolve and that they are tailored to our domestic circumstances and our national interest. Delivering that change is a crucial means to making us more productive and more competitive and to growing our economy. It is a key benefit of leaving the European Union.

That point was made clearly in the report of the taskforce on innovation, growth and regulatory reform, of which I was a member. We highlighted the need to return to the principles of common law after nearly five decades in which the Napoleonic code-based approach had found its way into such a wide range of our laws in the UK. I therefore welcome the Bill’s proposal to remove the special status of retained EU law. I also believe that it is important to take a fresh decision on each item of law that we have inherited from our period of EU membership to determine whether it should be retained, amended or repealed. But—this is an important “but”—I am concerned that the hard-stop sunset clause, which kicks in at the end of 2023, may not give us time to conduct the in-depth, evidence-based review of regulation that is needed.

The Bill provides a mechanism in certain circumstances for that deadline to be extended to 2026, but, as many have said, that still leaves an immense amount of work to be done in a brief period of time. We do not know with certainty, for example, how many laws there are within DEFRA’s food, animal welfare and environmental remit, because that has not yet been comprehensively counted on the Government’s dashboard. However, groups such as Greener UK point out that it includes at least 570 pieces of legislation. Reviewing those 570 enactments is a mammoth task. I well recall, during my time as Environment Secretary, the huge bandwidth needed to prepare and take through the statutory instruments needed for the initial exit process, and that was only 122 SIs.

It is worth looking at our experience with the deposit return scheme. That is a popular move and businesses believe that it can be made to work well, yet it is not expected to be in operation until 2024 at the earliest—six years after it was announced. If an uncontroversial bit of regulation takes that long to get right, my fear is that the process of reviewing environmental, animal welfare and food regulations might not be completed prior to either the 2023 or 2026 deadlines.

Retaining strong environmental rules and protections is absolutely crucial if we are to meet our commitment to halt species decline by 2030 and become a net zero economy by 2050. The perils of any gaps in food safety regulation are illustrated by the fact that, 30 years after the BSE disaster, there are still countries that ban British beef.

In conclusion, I would be the first to acknowledge that there are aspects of EU environment and food rules that could, and should, be made to work better. The habitats regulations are perhaps the most important example of that. As the former Environment Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), said, important work has already gone into potential changes and reforms, but we must avoid the situation where sunset clauses leave us with a period without legal rules on crucial environment, food safety and other issues.

This Conservative Government have shown the strongest commitment to environmental goals. They have led on the world stage and have enacted a groundbreaking new Environment Act. I now look forward to working with Back-Bench colleagues and with Ministers to improve the Bill and deliver legislation that seizes the economic opportunities provided by regulatory reform and ensures we achieve the historic goal that ours will be the first generation to hand on the natural environment in a better state than we found it.