This Regulation transferred existing EU legislation to be exercisable by public authorities in the UK so that they could be exercised at national level after the UK left the EU. The EU Regulations concerned cover, among other things, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), timber, transfrontier shipments of waste, the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits, and the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). It is important to note that these Regulations do not make changes to substantive policy content. They provide for the legislative function in each case to be exercisable by the appropriate UK authority. This is to ensure that the regimes continue to function smoothly, without the need for primary legislation every time a change in technical matters is required.
