Ministerial Directions under EUWA 2018

Ministerial Directions designating non-retained EU legislation

Ministerial Directions issued under sch. 5 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 are an official instruction from a Minister that TNA should treat specified items of EU law as non-retained legislation.

The Act creates a duty for TNA to publish retained EU legislation as it was incorporated into UK law on Exit Day. This was accomplished by publishing all potentially relevant items of EU legislation on legislation.gov.uk. However, some of these items may not actually be retained law, so the Act also creates a power for departments to specify that particular EU instruments (or parts of EU instruments) are not deemed to be retained and do not form part of UK law.

This is done by issuing a Ministerial Direction, and the effect is that TNA will take action on legislation.gov.uk to make it clear to users that the item or provision is not part of UK law.

Template

The template that should be used for drafting a Ministerial Direction can be downloaded here:

• Ministerial Direction Template

(This template is based upon the SI Template. There is no need to validate as you would for an SI, but it is still important to adhere to the formatting of the template.)

Similarly to an SI, once it is signed, the Ministerial Direction should be uploaded by a departmental submitter to be registered by TNA, allocated a number, and published on legislation.gov.uk. Instructions for drafting and submission are included in the ZIP file above, but if you have any queries, please contact publishing.legislation@nationalarchives.gov.uk.