An Act to revoke certain retained EU law; to make provision relating to the interpretation of retained EU law and to its relationship with other law; to make provision relating to powers to modify retained EU law; to enable the restatement, replacement or updating of certain retained EU law; to enable the updating of restatements and replacement provision; to abolish the business impact target; and for connected purposes.
Originally promoted by the government as the "Brexit Freedoms Bill" and introduced in Parliament in 2022,[2] the bill ran into significant opposition from many sources. In late April 2023, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade Kemi Badenoch announced that the government was planning to reduce the number of laws to be repealed by 31 December 2023 to around 800, as opposed to the government's original target of around 4,000 laws.[3][4] Such reversal was met with dismay by Brexit advocates, including the Bill's original architect Jacob Rees-Mogg.[5] In May 2023, the Bill suffered further reverses as the House of Lords rejected a number of aspects of the proposed legislation.[6] On 29 June 2023, the bill received royal assent.[7] The act took effect on the 1st January 2024, as a result retained EU law supremacy has ended within the UK, and retained laws no longer need to be interpreted in line with EU law principles.[8]
Terminology
Assimilated law
will be domestic law, which was previously REUL, but without the application of the EU law interpretive features applied to REUL by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (“EUWA”), namely supremacy, general principles of EU law and rights retained under section 4 of EUWA
— Explanatory memorandum to Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023
Provisions
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According to the crossheadings, the act provides for:
Under the terms of devolution, the Government of the United Kingdom is required to invite the devolved administrations to indicate their consent (or not) to proposed legislation that would affect devolved matters. However, it is not required to be bound by them.
On 23 February 2023, the Scottish Parliament voted to refuse its consent to the bill.[9] On 28 March 2023, the Senedd of Wales voted to refuse its consent to the bill.[10]