Unrealistic retained EU law review deadline risks greater uncertainty, AIC warns Government
The AIC has warned the Government against creating further uncertainty for its Members by setting unrealistic deadlines to complete a review of retained EU law.
Ian Muirhead, AIC Scotland's policy manager, gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill last Thursday (24 November).
Ian joined representatives from across the food and farming industry in answering questions from MSPs on the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee in Holyrood.
Watch the view summary below.
Arbitrary deadlines
During the session of scrutinising the Bill the AIC made clear that while review of retained EU Law is welcome, it was not feasible to attempt to conclude this by end of 2023.
Further regulatory uncertainty was deeply unwelcome, Ian told MSPs, especially given the recent years of turbulence caused by Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic, and the war in Ukraine.
"Many of our members are experiencing cost pressures on labour, fuel, and electricity, and supply chain distribution due to the war in Ukraine," he said.
He stressed that the end of 2023 was just 13 months away, making meaningful stakeholder engagement with this process difficult and so a review of all retained EU law by this date was not a realistic ambition.
"The arbitrary timescales and sun-setting clauses creates an unnecessary and unacceptable risk of there being a hole in legislation if it was not replaced, revoked or reformed with something similar so that obviously would then have an impact on animal health and welfare regulations and creates risks from a biosecurity point of view.
"If there was a failure, due to the timescales set out, to ensure minimum standards for food and feed safety, that would have major business and trade implications, particularly for our feed producing Members.
"In such a situation like that the supply chain would, through its various assurance schemes, have to implement our own standards to essentially reciprocate EU legislation to ensure continuity of trade, especially for Members who are exporting the [EU] single market."
Divergence risks
There were potential opportunities to be taken advantage of by reviewing the legislation Ian told the committee, but he said the main caveat was that "the mechanisms and timescales proposed are not realistic."
He added that there are major concerns about divergences in legislation within the UK and stressed the need to retain commonality.
"This Bill runs the risk of exacerbated divergences because of the timescales that are put in place and because of the balancing the executive freedoms of this place [Holyrood] and UK Government, maintaining a level playing field when there are vastly differing political priorities of, I assume, wanting to retain as much EU Law as possible from a Scottish perspective.
"That is a concern and one that might make that divergence risk higher."
He suggested taking a more targeted approach to reviewing EU law, highlighting the differentiation between the GM approvals process within Scotland and the UK and between the EU, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and supply chain disruption.
"There's a pressing need to have a reformed review system within Scotland and the UK for that, and that's an example of where Food Standards Scotland (FSS) resources could be deployed but may not be because of the proposals within this Bill."
Author
Oli Hill
As Communications Manager, Oli creates and oversees the content published on AIC's website, emails, Member briefings, print publications, and social media.
