Brexit
Brexit will have a major impact on all aspects of environmental and energy law, with a massive volume of primary and secondary legislation of critical importance expected in the next few years. William Wilson has given oral and written evidence to the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on its pre-legislative scrutiny of the Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill, and has spoken on the forthcoming Environment Bill to a range of bodies including major NGOs. He has also delivered detailed presentations on Brexit and Environmental Law to trade bodies, NGOs and other bodies.
William Wilson can help clients assess and navigate through the key impacts of legislation on their operations, identifying and analysing the points that matter most to them and helping to ensure that they are as well prepared to respond as possible. He is working on preparing Brexit Legislation Briefings to present for clients in-house.
On 16 July 2020, the UK government published a White Paper on the UK Internal Market. In his Foreword to the White Paper, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Alok Sharma noted that
The Welsh Government convened an event in Cardiff on 10 March 2020 to consider the report of a Stakeholder Task Group on this issue.
In a clear case of politics being seen to trump the concerns of business, the UK government has announced on 7 March 2020 that it will withdraw from the European Aviation Safety Agency ‘EASA’ after the end of the transition period and 31 December 2020.
Part 1 of the Environment Bill on Environmental Governance is by some way the most important part of this major legislation. It is also, as currently drafted, the most disappointing.
The re-introduced Agriculture Bill for the 2020 session of Parliament aims to enable the UK, or specifically England, on withdrawal from the Common Agricultural Policy on Brexit, to enact its own system of direct payments, replacing EU subsidies with payments of “public money for public goods”: such as environmental or animal welfare improvements.
The Fisheries Bill re-introduced to Parliament in 2020 aims to enable the UK to take powers to operate as an independent coastal state after Brexit; to withdraw from the Common Fisheries Policy, and to control access, by licensing external vessels, to UK fisheries within the UK’s 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
William Wilson, Barrister, Wyeside Consulting Ltd spoke at the Policy Forum for Wales Keynote Seminar on Energy Policy in Wales in Cardiff on 12 December 2019.
On 2 October 2019, the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee of the National Assembly for Wales published a report on ‘Environmental principles and governance post-Brexit’, containing very important recommendations to the Welsh Government for the way in which environmental laws and principles should be enacted, applied and enforced in Wales post Brexit.
Government briefings to businesses in preparation for a possible No Deal Brexit are now coming at them from all angles.
With the (somewhat controversial) prorogation of Parliament from 9 September to 14 October 2019, it would appear that the Agriculture Bill, the Fisheries Bill and other key legislation including the Trade Bill, which were going through Parliament on 9 September will now technically ‘fall’.
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