Discarding EU Laws Would Cause Chaos, Say Watchdogs

Standards on food safety, animal welfare and consumer rights are all under threat from the government’s recklessly irresponsible” bid to axe EU laws in a matter of months, safety watchdogs have warned.

- Jon Stone

Civil servants are rushing to rewrite reams of existing regulations because the former so-called Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg wants to cleanse the country of rules that originated in Brussels by the end of 2023.

Trading standards officers have now said they are concerned that ministers’ plans could see dangerous products end up on British shelves, new diseases taking hold on farms, and scammers given new opportunities to rip people off. Watchdogs warned Rishi Sunak that the rush to rewrite the laws at speed is dangerous and that inevitable” errors will creep in with unpredictable and potentially disastrous consequences.

The Retained EU Law Bill was cooked up by former Brexit opportunities ministers Jacob Rees-Mogg and his predecessor Lord Frost and is widely seen as a politically-motivated move to placate hardcore Brexiteers. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute CTSI), the professional body for the trading standards profession, says the timetable outlined in the bill had created widespread concern among consumer protection experts”.

The body has written to Mr Sunak along with a dozen other organisations including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the British Safety Industry Federation, and the Child Accident Prevention Trust, to warn of the dangers. Rushing through legislation which could undermine these protections would have potentially disastrous consequences, and could ultimately put lives at risk,” they say in their letter to the prime minister.