Thousands of EU laws on everything from workers’ rights to the environment are to be transferred into UK law as the country gears up for Brexit.
Brexit Secretary David Davis said the Great Repeal Bill would allow the UK Parliament and Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland administrations to scrap, amend and improve laws.
It would also end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
But Labour warned it was being done without proper Parliamentary scrutiny.
It comes a day after Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50, starting the process which will officially take Britain out of the EU in March 2019.
In a statement to MPs, David Davis said the repeal bill would allow businesses to continue operating on the day after UK leaves the EU “knowing the rules have not changed overnight”.
He said it would also mean that workers’ rights, environmental protection and consumer rights currently enshrined in EU laws would continue as UK laws – although Parliament would be free to change them later.
The repeal bill will also “end the supremacy” of EU law in the UK, “delivering” on the result of last year’s referendum, he added.
“Our laws will then be made in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast and interpreted not by judges in Luxembourg but by judges across the United Kingdom,” he told MPs.
Mr Davis said the repeal bill would not give the European Court of Justice a “future role” in the interpretation of UK laws, and UK courts will not be obliged to consider cases decided by the ECJ after Brexit.
But UK courts will be allowed to refer to ECJ case law “as it exists on the day we leave the EU” and it would have the same status as Supreme Court decisions, which can be overturned by subsequent rulings.
‘A unique challenge’
The Great Repeal Bill, which Theresa May has said will make the UK an “independent, sovereign nation”, would:
- Repeal the European Communities Act, which says EU law is supreme to the UK’s
- Ensure the UK leaves the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice
- Transpose existing EU legislation into domestic UK law
- It would come into force the day the UK leaves the EU
- The Commons library anticipates it will be “one of the largest legislative projects ever undertaken in the UK”
- A Lords committee described it as a “unique challenge”, with EU law having accumulated over decades
Source: BBC
