Blog by Professor Susan
Jebb
The Brexit Freedoms Bill is a piece of legislation that could
have profound implications
for public health and businesses alike.
This bill, also known as the Retained EU Law
(Revocation and Reform) Bill, has been introduced to allow
ministers to replace EU regulations and directives with new
domestic legislation. It will ‘sunset’ any remaining laws at the
end of 2023, meaning they will be repealed automatically unless
it’s decided to extend, preserve, or replace them beforehand.
In the FSA, we are clear that we cannot simply sunset the laws on
food safety and authenticity without a decline in UK food
standards and a significant risk to public health. While I’m sure
this is not the Government’s intention with these plans, the
current timeframe does cause me some concern. We will need to
work through more than 150 pieces of retained EU law very quickly
and to advise ministers on how best to incorporate important
rules that safeguard food safety and public health within our
domestic legislation. This is a very challenging task, and it
inevitably means that we will have to deprioritise other
important work.
Ensuring that people have food they can trust remains our number
one priority. We also recognise this is an opportunity to
review and reform these laws so that businesses have the right
regulation to enable them to provide safe and trusted food, to
trade internationally and to grow.
In due course, we think a new UK Food and Feed Bill
would provide the best opportunity for a comprehensive rethink,
tailored to the needs of the UK. Our experience tells us that
developing policy in an evidence-based, open and transparent way
is better for consumers and for businesses, but this takes time
to get it right.
