Brexit Freedoms
Bill
“My Government will continue to seize the opportunities of the
United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, to support
economic growth. Regulations on businesses will be repealed and
reformed. A bill will enable law inherited from the European
Union to be more easily amended.”
The purpose of the Bill is to:
● Fulfil the manifesto commitment to end the supremacy of
European law and seize the benefits of Brexit by ensuring
regulation fits the needs of the UK, which in turn will enable
economic growth.
The main benefits of the Bill would be:
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● Ensuring that retained EU law can be amended,
repealed or replaced with legislation which better suits the
UK, without this taking decades of parliamentary time to
achieve.
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● Modernising the UK’s approach to making regulations,
improving the nimbleness and competitiveness of the UK
economy whilst maintaining high standards.
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● Enabling the UK to be the best regulated economy in
the world and creating a regulatory environment that
encourages prosperity, innovation, entrepreneurship and the
cutting of £1 billion of burdensome EU red tape for
businesses.
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● Asserting the sovereignty of Parliament by removing
the supremacy of retained EU law over UK law in our legal
system.
The main elements of the Bill are:
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● Creating new powers to strengthen the ability to
amend, repeal or replace the large amounts of retained EU law
by reducing the need to always use primary legislation to do
so.
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● Removing the supremacy of retained EU law as it still
applies in the UK.
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● Clarifying the status of retained EU law in UK
domestic law to reflect the fact that much of it became law
without going through full democratic scrutiny in the UK
Parliament
Territorial extent and application
● The Bill will extend and apply across the UK.
Key facts
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● As a condition of membership, the UK was required to
abide by EU law, giving up its sovereignty and the ability to
set rules that diverged from the EU. These laws were
implemented into the UK legal system during our EU membership
through the European Communities Act 1972 and other
legislation. This EU-derived legislation was transferred into
UK law as retained EU law. This was a bridging measure when
we left the EU to ensure short-term legal stability, but in
the knowledge that much of it was not right for the UK in the
longer term.
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● The Government’s review of retained EU law has, to
date, identified over 1,400 pieces of EU-derived law that
have been transferred into UK law. Many of these were agreed
as a messy compromise between 28 different EU member states
and they did not always reflect the UK’s own priorities or
objectives. Much of this law was also imposed and changed
with minimal parliamentary scrutiny in the past.
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● The supremacy of EU law still applies to legislation
passed before we left the EU; a total of 2,376 Acts of
Parliament. By removing the principle of supremacy, the
relationship between EU-derived law and those Acts of
Parliament will be changed to ensure that EU-derived law no
longer takes priority over laws passed by the UK Parliament.
The Bill is an opportunity to address this, realise the
benefits of Brexit and ensure that there is no higher law
than an Act of Parliament.
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● The Bill will significantly reduce the amount of time
needed to make retained EU legislation fit for the UK,
meaning the Government can more quickly implement the
benefits of Brexit.
