As set out in the EU Withdrawal Act (2018) the government’s approach to Brexit is to transfer EU law into UK law and address any deficiencies in that law by secondary legislation.

This Briefing Paper examines post-Brexit food safety legislation and finds that the UK’s post-Brexit  safety rules fall short of the level of protection currently provided by the EU and, in some cases, they give ministers broad discretion to make future changes without full parliamentary scrutiny.  This would provide a relatively clear path for a UK Prime Minister to overcome parliamentary opposition to any new trade agreements that cover agricultural and food products, such as US-UK FTA. Also, Brexit food safety legislation allows for devolution which could undermine both the UK’s ability to undertake a unified approach to external trade agreements and also the maintenance of the UK’s internal free movement of goods.

Read Briefing Paper 37 BREXIT FOOD SAFETY LEGISLATION AND POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR UK TRADE: THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS