Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 ends the special constitutional status of retained EU law and enables ministers to more easily restate, revoke, or replace it.
Who is affected: All persons and businesses in Great Britain whose rights or obligations derive from EU-origin legislation retained after Brexit
What Changed
The Act removes the doctrine of EU law supremacy from the interpretation of retained EU law (now called 'assimilated law'), meaning that courts are no longer required to interpret domestic legislation consistently with EU law principles after 31 December 2023. The European Communities Act 1972 had already been repealed, but this Act removes the remaining interpretive obligations. Ministers are given broad powers to restate, revoke, or replace assimilated law by statutory instrument, subject to parliamentary scrutiny. The previous 'sunset clause' that would have automatically revoked thousands of EU-derived instruments was removed during the Bill's passage, but individual revocations and replacements are ongoing. Consumer rights, employment rights, and environmental protections derived from EU law are unaffected only insofar as they have been retained or replaced by domestic legislation.
What To Do
Businesses and practitioners in sectors heavily regulated by EU-derived law (financial services, food safety, environmental, consumer, employment) should monitor the government's retained EU law dashboard and check whether any particular regulations in their sector have been revoked, restated, or replaced. Legal advisers should update standard precedents that relied on the principle of consistent interpretation with EU law directives. Employment rights practitioners should check that rights derived from EU employment directives (e.g. TUPE, working time) remain in force under their domestic legislative instrument.