Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has deprioritised any Statutory Instruments in relation to the UK leaving the EU; and if he will publish the criteria his Department uses to deprioritise those Instruments.

The Department has not deprioritised any European Union exit Statutory Instruments (SIs).

Our objective has always been to have a functioning statute book in place by ‘exit day’ and to ensure that the most critical secondary legislation was made by this point. Each SI was carefully considered on a case-by-case basis, enabling the Department to lay the critical secondary legislation required before we exit the EU.

Given the extension to Article 50, the Department will consider whether any further EU exit SIs will need to be brought forward to amend any EU Regulations which have come into force since the original EU Exit SI programme was finalised, to ensure a functioning statute book ahead of a potential ‘no deal’ exit. The Department will keep this under careful review.