UK companies keen to retain EU employment laws

Most British companies want to retain current EU rules – including those governing employment law – after Brexit, People Management reports a study from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has found. Of 23 business sectors in the UK, 18 favour retaining EU rules, highlighting their desire to converge or align with the majority of EU regulations after Britain leaves the EU. Around 19 000 pieces of EU legislation are currently in force, covering every sector of the UK economy, leading to warnings from experts that even small changes to the regulatory framework could have hugely detrimental knock-on consequences to the British economy. Even where there are certain advantages in diverging from EU regulations, the study said ‘these changes are minor overall and the benefits of changes are outweighed by the costs of losing access to the EU market’. Beyond assessing the impact on different sectors, the CBI study considered rules that touch all businesses, and suggested how these wider regulations should be approached. The report says a key priority is employment law where there was no appetite for deregulation among businesses.