Some threats to wildlife instantly capture the public’s imagination and provoke a passionate response. The destruction of woodland, polluting rivers or concreting over the countryside all have consequences that are visual, dramatic and easily understood.

But every now and then a threat comes along that sounds boring yet would have such devastating consequences that we need to break it down, explain it and spread the word.

The Retained EU Law Bill is such a threat.

What is the Retained EU Law Bill?

Hundreds of our environmental laws that protect wildlife, land and sea originate from our previous membership of the European Union.

They are now known as Retained EU Law (REUL). They are laws that we designed, created and signed up to in partnership with other counties across Europe.

Having left the EU does not mean we have left the need to protect our natural environment, but the REUL Bill would automatically bin hundreds of environmental laws on 31 December 2023 if they have not been explicitly saved by ministers.

It will be impossible for Defra to deal with an estimated 1,000 pieces of Retained EU Law that fall within their area before that deadline. Therefore, environmental laws that we created will be lost in silence by a trick of bureaucracy. 

What laws would be lost?

And this is just the regulations that relate to the environment: thousands of other regulations relating to health, welfare and employment rights will also be lost.

So wide-reaching and so destructive is this bill that it has become known as the “bulldozer bill”.

Instead of bulldozing these regulations, Parliament should be given time to gradually replace laws as it sees fit and not set an artificial deadline that gives no time or mechanism for debate, scrutiny, consultation and consideration of the impacts on our environment.

Impacts such as:

• Loss of protections to species like dormice, otters, dolphins and the rare Bechstein’s bats of Bernwood in Buckinghamshire
• More building on precious habitats in our countryside
• Removal of conservation designations from some of our best sites for wildlife including the chalk downland and beechwoods of the Chilterns, flower-rich waterside meadows in Oxford, exceptionally rare fens of Cothill and the lowland heaths of Berkshire, home to rare birds like nightjar and Dartford warbler
• Loss of clean water protections for our rivers
• Increased use of pesticides at a time when agriculture desperately needs to reduce its dependence on dangerous chemicals
• Weakening of animal welfare standards

Could the laws be kept?

Even if ministers choose to “save” some Retained EU Law, the Bill gives them huge freedom to amend the laws as they see fit. Where environmental laws are not lost, we risk them being weakened.

When a government proposes policy or legislation that threatens just one environmental protection we should be concerned. When a government proposes legislation that threatens hundreds of environmental protections we should be apoplectic.

This trick of bureaucracy is not a paper exercise; it’s not even a sword hanging over one species: it is a potential bulldozing of rules that protect our wildlife; the destruction of woodland, polluting of rivers and paving over the countryside.

All could be made easier if the REUL Bill becomes law.

If you want more information about the REUL bill and what it means for wildlife and for us, watch our WildLive webinar here

What can you do?

Please consider contacting your MP to ask for the REUL bill to be scrapped.

The most effective way to lobby your MP is to ask for a meeting, but if you don’t  have time for this you can write. Either way, you will find lots of advice on our website here.

If you are short of time you can send a postcard  to your MP asking for the REUL bill to be scrapped.

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