Chemicals: Regulation

(asked on 23rd February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to undertake public consultation on chemical industry proposals to curtail provision of chemical safety data for UK REACH.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 2nd March 2021

UK REACH retains both the fundamental approach and key principles of REACH with its aims of ensuring a high level of protection of human health and the environment and enhancing competitiveness and innovation. These principles include the "no data, no market" principle, the "last resort" principle on animal testing, access to information for workers and the precautionary principle.

Now we have left the EU we have the freedom to take our own independent regulatory decisions that respond quickly to the circumstances in the UK and globally. For example, we have the ability to take proactive action on the levels of exposure or environmental conditions in the UK. Under UK REACH the ongoing responsibility to demonstrate understanding of hazards and risks and effective risk management lies with industry.

A number of organisations in the chemicals and downstream user sectors have recently written to us about the data provision requirements of UK REACH given the potential costs involved. We are looking into the detail of that proposal very carefully. In doing so we will take account of the benefits and risks of making any changes to the arrangements that are in place now, including the impact it would have in our commitment to maintaining high standards of protection for public health and the environment. We will also consider the impact on our international obligations.

We will involve the devolved administrations in this work as competence for the environment and public health is devolved. As well as discussing the proposal with industry we will also want to hear the views of other interested parties, including public health and environmental organisations.

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