Government retreats from Brexit bill plan to ditch EU laws

Climbdown likely after cross-party Lords revolt threatens to defeat Jacob Rees-Mogg's retained EU law bill

Ministers have begun a full-scale retreat over post-Brexit plans to ditch thousands of EU laws by the end of this year, after Tory peers warned they would join a mass cross-party revolt in the House of Lords.

The Observer can reveal that the government has dropped plans to hold the report stage of the Brexiters' retained EU law bill in the Lords soon after Easter, apparently to prevent a row in the run-up to the local elections on 4 May and to allow it time to consider a list of likely concessions to rebels.