Legislation for the Great Repeal Bill to be introduced soon
The Brexit secretary, David Davis, has indicated that legislation for the “Great Repeal Bill” – the incorporation of laws passed by the EU onto our statute books so that they take their authority from Westminster rather than Brussels, could be introduced as early as next week.
The objective of this Bill is to enable life in the UK to run as smoothly as possible during the immediate post-Brexit period when, under the rules of Article 50, the EU treaties will cease to apply.
Obviously, it would not be appropriate for all EU legislation to remain on the EU’s statute book lock, stock and barrel. Thankfully, it appears that there is growing awareness that EU fisheries legislation must not apply once we leave. We will no doubt be made aware of other exceptions in due course. They will either need so much re-working that it is best to start from scratch or else they are totally unsuitable.
There are also plenty of other pieces UK legislation which have been put on our books such as the Landfill Directive or the Interoperability Directive, which are far from ideal, but with which we can live for a couple of years. After all, the Government will have its hand full dealing with essential issues, including the complex subject of trade, a subject about which little of substance has been revealed as far as exit strategy is concerned.
Therefore, much as many of us resent the fact that so much of our legislation during the last forty years has originated in Brussels rather than Westminster, we have little choice. Not bringing this legislation across would leave us without any standards and regulation in many crucial areas of our nation’s life, including health standards for bathing water or car exhaust emissions. Some of them are actually quite sensible. After all, even the worst of régimes occasionally come up with some good laws. Only when we have achieved our very challenging objective of leaving the iron grip of the EU will the resources be available for the re-evaluation of these regulations.
