Wholesale repeal of EU Law in the UK

Those of eagle eyed of you may have spotted that last Thursday, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was published. The cynical amongst us may say that it was deliberately timed at the same time as discussions and speculation were being made in the media about the emergency economic measures!

The impact and purpose of the Bill is to repeal any retained European Law on 31 December 2023  unless specific legislation is introduced to retain it.

This could have a big impact on employment law and rights of employees in the UK.

There is of course a lot of speculation about what will be retained and what will be scrapped, and it has been widely considered since Brexit that the government would seek to get rid of rights under TUPE and agency worker regulations which have generally been unpopular and difficult for employers to work with.

Given that traditionally the Conservative government have tended to be more pro employer than employee rights it will certainly be interesting to see what happens over the next 12-15 months.

As always, we will of course keep you updated on the news as it happens.

If you are interested, you can read the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill in full here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0156/220156.pdf