New Legislation – relating to retained EU law, including consequential amendments to the EIA Regulations 2017 and other planning legislation (27/02/2025) …

The following 1 new Statutory Instrument (SI) comes into force on 27/02/2025:

New Legislation:

  • February 2025: SI 2025 No. 82 - The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2025 (pdf) (link).

Notes:

  • The above SI 2025 No. 82 includes consequential amendments to the following SIs:
    - EIA Regulations 2017.
    - Hazardous Substances Regulations 2015.
    - The Infrastructure Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017.
  • In particular, regulation 2 and Schedule 5 Part 1 paragraphs 3-5 of the above SI 2025 No. 82 replace references to "retained EU [law]" with references to "assimilated [law]".
  • Note: The "Explanatory Memorandum" (link) to the above SI 2025 No. 82 includes the following information:
    - "This Instrument [SI 2025 No. 82] makes consequential amendments to secondary legislation necessitated by provisions of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 ("REUL Act [2023]").".
    - "This instrument [SI 2025 No. 82] amends secondary legislation to remove references to "retained EU law" ("REUL") and replace them with "assimilated law". This instrument [SI 2025 No. 82] also removes references to general principles of EU law and section 4 rights. These amendments reflect the changes made by Section 4 of the REUL Act [2023] which amended the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 ("EUWA [2018]") so that general principles of EU law as an aid to interpretation were removed from UK law at the end of 2023 and reflect the repeal of section 4 of EUWA [2018] under section 2. Section 5 of the REUL Act [2023] provided that after the end of 2023, "REUL" (and related terms such as "retained EU case law") remaining in force is to be known as "assimilated law" (and related similar terms, such as "assimilated EU case law"). This renaming was done to represent the removal of EU interpretive effects at the end of 2023, the abolition of supremacy (in so far as it still remained for interpretation and conflicts purposes) and general principles of EU law (under, respectively, sections 3 and 4 of the REUL Act [2023]).".

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