Who is the Cabinet Secretary and how are they appointed?
The Cabinet Secretary is the Head of the Home Civil Service. They are appointed by the Prime Minister following a recruitment process.
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill would make major changes to the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and its system of retained EU law.
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022-23 (836 KB , PDF)
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (Bill 156) was presented to the House of Commons for its first reading on Thursday 22 September 2022. No date has yet been indicated for Its Commons second reading.
The Bill would completely overhaul a body of UK domestic law known as “retained EU law” (REUL). That body of law was created by the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (EUWA) as amended by the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 (EUWAA) and came into existence at the end of the post-Brexit transition period (ie the end of 2020).
Retained EU law is a form of UK domestic law. It was created to preserve the substantive law of the UK after EU law was “cut-off” as a source. The purpose of doing this was to provide legal continuity and certainty in the aftermath of Brexit, for individuals, government, businesses and other organisations.
There are (broadly) five main categories of retained EU law, the source of which was either created or preserved under EUWA 2018:
Other parts of EUWA also determined:
EUWA notably also conferred temporary delegated powers in connection with the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. These powers, among other things, allowed ministers to anticipate or correct “deficiencies” in REUL. Most of those powers expire at the end of 2022 (two years after the end of the transition period).
During the summer of 2021, the Brexit Opportunities Unit (BOU) was set-up within the Cabinet Office. Lord (David) Frost, then the Cabinet Office minister with responsibility for the BOU, indicated in two ministerial statements (one in September 2021 and one in December 2021) dissatisfaction with the constitutional settlement in EUWA, as well as broader concerns about the volume of REUL that remained on the domestic statute book.
This gave rise to a two-part retained EU law “review” within government.
Although this Bill was developed by the Cabinet Office, the responsible Minister in the Commons is the current Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Jacob Rees-Mogg. He had previously succeeded Lord Frost as the minister with responsibility for the Brexit Opportunities Unit in February 2022. It is understood that responsibility for this Bill moved from Cabinet Office to BEIS following the change of Prime Minister, and this is expected to be reflected in other machinery of government changes.
Lord Frost outlined the Government’s main objections to the EUWA settlement in a ministerial statement in December 2021:
The current Bill goes considerably further than was indicated in the December 2021 ministerial statement. It completely overhauls the constitutional architecture of REUL, making it (on the whole) much easier to revoke, modify or replace through secondary legislation. The Bill, most notably would:
It is difficult to assess the impact this Bill will have on the substantive law of the UK. If it is enacted, and nothing is done legislatively thereafter, vast reams of REUL would fall away at the end of 2023. This would create precisely the “gaps” in domestic law the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 was designed to avoid. This is a very unlikely outcome, however.
It is more plausible that the different powers in the Bill, to preserve, restate, replicate, revoke, replace and update parts of REUL, will be used extensively before the end of the sunset period. What is difficult to predict, however, is exactly how those powers will be used, and which powers the UK Government (and devolved authorities) will rely on most heavily. The complexity of the new legislative regime could create some degree of legal uncertainty in policy areas heavily impacted by REUL.
This Bill would enable far more decisions about the content of REUL to be taken by the UK and devolved executives, rather than by legislatures. Moreover, to the extent legislatures are still involved, those decisions would be taken with less oversight than there is at the moment. Organisations including the Hansard Society and Public Law Project have expressed concerns about Parliament being marginalised.
Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022-23 (836 KB , PDF)
The Cabinet Secretary is the Head of the Home Civil Service. They are appointed by the Prime Minister following a recruitment process.
The UK and EU have, since 2021, been negotiating a proposed agreement on Gibraltar’s relationship with the EU. This briefing provides background and an overview of the talks so far
This briefing describes the stages a bill goes through when it is introduced to the House of Commons as a private member's bill.