A failure to ditch thousands of EU-era laws by end of the year as promised is “not quite a U-turn”, a minister insisted on Thursday.
Home Office minister Sarah Dines rejected Brexiteers’ fury at delays to axing European legislation.
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has confirmed that around 600 laws would be revoked rather than the 4,000 pledged, insisting it is “about more than a race to a deadline”.
Completing a post-Brexit “bonfire” of remaining EU laws by the end of 2023 was a key pledge of Rishi Sunak’s leadership campaign last year.
But Ms Dines told GB News: “It’s not quite a U-turn, it’s a more calculated, calm way of getting rid of some of these laws. We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
“We need to make sure we get rid of those laws which we don’t need and we keep some which are compatible with what we want to do in this country.”
However former Brexit Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg accused Mr Sunak of breaking his word and “behaving like a Borgia” after scaling back the promise.
“Politicians have not delivered,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.
“This comes back to the Prime Minister’s promise in his video during his leadership campaign when he said he would do this.
“Bear in mind at that time, he had already given right round consent to the retained EU Law Bill.
“He knew that it wasn’t easy. He knew that it was going to be an effort to get it done by actually a slightly longer deadline at that point. He accepted the deadline of 2023. He has broken his word. This is very serious.”
Brexit hardliners on the European Research Group of Tory MPs have been angered by the move.
Around 20 MPs met Conservative Chief Whip Simon Hart on Wednesday night to relay their concerns.
In an editorial in the Telegraph, Ms Badenoch claimed it was impossible to push ahead with Government plans to scrap the laws by the deadline because civil servants had “focused on which laws should be preserved ahead of the deadline, rather than pursuing the meaningful reform government and businesses want to see”.
In a written statement to MPs she added: “We will still fully take back control of our laws and end the supremacy and special status of retained EU law by the end of 2023.”
Mr Rees-Mogg blamed the Whitehall “blob” for the delay.
“Setting a deadline theoretically makes Whitehall work – without a deadline, nothing will happen, and we will retain these laws for a long time,” he said.
Ms Dines said the Government was doing “a proper, measured” job of reviewing legislation.
Asked whether the delay could be blamed on the “blob” Civil Service, she added: “I don’t think it’s all-out war.
“It’s just a very huge task. We are changing our constitutional arrangements by leaving and I fully support Brexit.
“What we need to do is keep the best but get rid of all the rest that we don’t need.
“We are doing that in a proper way.”
Jane Gratton, of the British Chambers of Commerce, said firms had been worried about the “headlong rush towards the sudden removal of vast swathes of legislation overnight”.
“It is welcome that Government has listened, and the Bill will no longer apply a blanket sunset clause in this way, with the real risk of unintended but negative consequences,” she said.
