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EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 - Statutory Instruments

The EU Withdrawal Act 2018 confers powers on Ministers to make a broad range of amendments to deal with the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. As part of its wider dissemination of Brexit related information, RaISe will disseminate information on certain regulations relating to areas within the competence of the devolved authorities in Northern Ireland.

Introduction

When the UK leaves the European Union, there will be some laws and regulations that will no longer apply or work properly. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (EUW Act), therefore, contains a ‘correcting power’ that enables corrections to be made to law to make it work appropriately after the UK has left the EU. The EUW Act also contains an ‘implementing power’, which is a limited power to enable the withdrawal agreement to be implemented as appropriate. This is a separate process from that by which the Government will bring forward a motion on the final agreement to be voted on by both Houses of Parliament before it is concluded. The correcting power and the implementing power have been conferred on:

(a) UK Government Ministers,

(b) devolved authorities, or 

(c) a UK Government Minister acting jointly with one or more devolved authorities.

The devolved authorities will only be able to exercise the powers within their areas of devolved competence, as defined in the EUW Act. UK Government Ministers, however, may Act in all areas, including those within devolved competence. The Government has stated though that it will not normally do so without the agreement of the relevant devolved authority.

With exit day less than one year away, and in the continued absence of a Northern Ireland Executive, UK Government has stated that ‘in the interest of legal certainty in Northern Ireland’, the UK Government Ministers will, in close consultation with the Northern Ireland departments, take through at Westminster the necessary secondary legislation for Northern Ireland.