IEA Director of Public Policy and Communications Matthew Lesh has written a letter to The Financial Times arguing that the UK does not need to rush towards sunsetting all retained European Union law to take advantage of Brexit.

Matthew wrote:

“There is understandable concern that the government is squandering Brexit regulatory reform opportunities. Indeed, with notable exceptions like new rules for precision gene editing, the UK has largely left EU rules unchanged.

“But the story may not be so simple, even for advocates of regulatory reform. The current “sunset clause”, which the government is expected to remove, means EU laws are set to automatically expire if they have not been revised or retained. In practice, the provision to “sunset” by the end of the year is backfiring. In response, departments have lined up to demand most laws are exempted to avoid a regulatory cliff edge. They are busily drafting hundreds of statutory instruments to maintain the status quo. This timely process has paralysed civil servants. The government cannot realistically — from the perspective of good policymaking, regulatory certainty for businesses and honouring international commitments — simply get rid of all retained EU law overnight. They need to be analysed, reformed and replaced.”

Read Matthew’s full letter here.