In the past months, Welsh Ministers have said time and time again to UK Ministers that this Bill needs to be prevented, or it needs to be significantly changed. But, to date, the UK Government haven't done either of those two things. The Welsh Government disagrees vehemently with the whole intention of the Bill. Generally speaking, we believe that retained EU law works well, as EU law worked well prior to that. Of course, gradual change over time, in the usual way, would make sense. But this Bill creates a rushed process of revocation or removal. It does this in an unacceptable way, without consultation and without real impact assessment, and without appropriate scrutiny of individual pieces of law. It means that pieces of retained EU law will lapse without any scrutiny unless steps are taken to prevent this. This is a waste of important Government and parliamentary time just to keep the crucial things that the Bill would otherwise remove automatically from law.

In the six months since it's appeared, the Bill has created great uncertainty and risk for everyone. UK Government Ministers still haven't clearly stated which pieces of law they want to retain and which they want to revoke. It's possible that UK Government Ministers will remove all pieces of retained EU law by the end of this year. That would have a terrible impact in the light of losing social and environmental measures that are crucial. Rather than that, we should see a more cautious process to review all pieces of retained EU law cautiously. The UK Government should work with other Governments as equal partners in order to ensure that things are consistent across the UK, but we still don't know exactly how this will evolve.