What are the implications of the Retained EU Law (REUL) on the engineering & technology sector?

Question

At the IET we are looking to comment on the Retained EU Law (REUL), which is having its 2 nd reading in the House of Lords on 6 February, having already progressed through the House of Commons. The essence of the Bill is that EU law that has been adopted in the UK will automatically expire on 31 December 2023 unless specifically retained by the UK. REUL also gives more extensive power to Ministers to decide what laws to retain without the usual parliamentary scrutiny. 
 I&rsquo;d like to get your thoughts on the potential impact of REUL in your own sector, with specific evidence where possible. My questions are: 
 
 Does the prospect of losing EU law have direct / indirect implications for your engineering / technology sector? 
 If so, in which particular areas, to what extent and who will it impact? 
 Would you welcome the deregulation of engineering and technology safety practices? 
 What are your suggestions on the best way forward with the legislation? 
 
 Thank you for your responses.

mapj1 · Accepted Answer

The big problem is knowing in advance what exactly will be retained, not this bill itself. In principle, once this bill is past without a lot of marking of things for retention, we could lose much legislation passed since the 1970s, including asbestos legislation, working hours legislation, controls requiring unleaded solder and compulsory seatbelts. That may or may not be th intention, but I suspect that will not happen, rather most of the significant stuff will be retained with minimal changes. But it is very likely there will be odd holes to fix later. There is a political will to have a 'bonfire of red tape' which seems jolly attractive, but may be less spectacular than the hype. There is no question that the regulations that govern us have become increasingly labyrinthine in recent years, and there is scope for rationalizing. The problem is that quite a bit of that is not the EU anyway, but our own legal process. Its not the EU requiring for example restaurant owners to create risk assessments and method statement for staff using a tin-opener, though we all pay the price for it. 
 As the UK ceases to be a fossil fuel exporter we will need to move to more of a goods economy than a services one to compensate, we will have to adapt a lot of this anyway. It may not be wise to do it all at once. More locally I do not care too much what changes, we can adapt, but what is needed is time to preview exactly what is changing before it does. Mike.

Andy Millar · Answer

I had a look at the effect on us in the rail sector when this was first announced, and so far cannot find any impact at all. Every "EU" regulation I can find that affects us has been adopted into UK law anyway, so would not be affected. (A huge amount of it was based on UK practice anyway!) 
 I can't imagine much public appetite for deregulating safety in our industry. 
 Best way forward with legislation (again thinking of the rail industry): as far as possible keep it compatible with EU legislation. Otherwise suppliers have to comply with two different sets of regulation, which is extremely expensive and adds little real value.

Lisa Miles · Answer

mmmm still coming up against a paywall for the Financial Times website I'm afraid. However the Guardian are covering the story too:

Andy Millar · Answer

Yes but...this doesn't affect exporting to the EU (which is still covered by EU legislation whatever we do)? This is about living and working in the UK , and whether we believe that by December it will be possible to review 3,745 pieces of legislation covering everything from food standards to fertilisers to sickness benefits to architects to airport slot regulations to radio frequency band allocations to the requirements to wear seat belts to etc etc etc 
 It really is worth having a look down the list, it's extraordinary https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1132834/REUL_Data.csv/preview

Andy Millar · Answer

mapj1 said: I agree this is a mess, I disagree that confronting it is a problem. 
 Hi Mike, 
 Apologies for the late reply, I got distracted by some engineering...I agree absolutely that it's worth reviewing these laws, what I strongly disagreed with (past tense following today's news) was setting an arbitrary and unachievable date by which they would be scrapped if not reviewed. I believe (as a number of pretty responsible organisations also believed) that at least one of two scenarios would occur: importing legislation into UK law would be rushed through and mistakes would be made, and / or legislation would get scrapped with no review. I'm afraid I don't share your optimism that the important bits of legislation are already being reviewed - remember that other than this bill there is currently no reason to review them. 
 The revised proposal, to identify which of these regulations may be superfluous, or "bad law", or potentially simply not wanted in the UK, and then to review those, seems a very sensible approach. 
 Thanks, 
 Andy

What are the implications of the Retained EU Law (REUL) on the engineering & technology sector?

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