Bonfire of EU laws? Not if we can’t find them, warns Rees-Mogg
‘[It] gives civil servants a thankless task when they could be focusing on pressing issues’
LABOUR could put out a bonfire of EU laws because civil servants cannot find them all in time for the next election, Jacob Rees-Mogg has warned.
The former Cabinet minister, who designed the so-called “Brexit Freedoms Bill” that will remove EU legislation from the UK statute books, said the project risks being undermined by civil servants who oppose Brexit altogether.
The Bill, which has not yet cleared the Commons, sets a “sunsetting” deadline of Dec 31 this year for EU legislation to be expunged if it is not specifically designed as necessary by Whitehall.
But civil servants working on the project have described trawling through decades of legislation to find EU directives as an impossible task within the timeframe, and the list has grown from 2,400 to over 4,000 laws.
Sources say the deadline could be extended by six months to allow more time for laws to be found, risking the process being handed to Sir Keir Starmer if an election is held in the meantime. Labour opposes the process and is pushing for every single regulation to be debated by MPs and peers by amending the Bill in the House of Lords. It is understood the report stage from the Bill’s consideration in the Lords, due in the next fortnight, has already been pushed back to May.
Mr Rees-Mogg suggested civil servants were deliberately delaying the process so it could be controlled by Labour.
He said: “A delay is unjustified. The Civil Service has had plenty of time to do this work and the advocates of delay essentially oppose Brexit.
“They hope that a Labour government would seek to shadow the EU and that keeping EU law makes this easier.” Campaigners argue that the process risks important environmental protections being missed by civil servants and slipping from the statute books.
Any EU legislation that ministers would like to retain that they do not name by the sunsetting deadline may have to be reintroduced by passing new legislation, which could block up parliamentary time and prevent Rishi Sunak from pursuing government business. Ruth Chambers, of the Greener UK coalition that represents organisations including the RSPB and National Trust, said: “This Bill gives civil servants a thankless task when they could be focusing on pressing issues like farming reform or restoring iconic species. A sensible government would be looking to pursue genuine Brexit opportunities rather than political points.”
The Bill is also opposed by some Conservative MPs, who argue it has wasted the opportunities of Brexit by handing control of retained EU law to unelected civil servants, rather than MPs. David
Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said: “Whitehall isn’t good at this sort of thing. The minister should have realised early on that trying to take on 40 years of legislative history and deal with it in six months was not going to succeed quite as intended.”
A government spokesman said: “We are fully committed to the Retained EU Law Bill, a key part of delivering our commitment of removing and reforming burdensome retained EU law. Once passed, the Bill will enable the country to further seize the opportunities of Brexit by ensuring regulations fit the needs of the UK.”