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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if her Department will take steps to publish a chemicals strategy on the potential impact of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) represent a group of thousands of chemicals, with hundreds used commercially across many sectors of industry and society. There is increasing evidence of the occurrence of PFAS in the environment and, once in the environment, PFAS are persistent. There is also growing concern regarding the risks to human health. Action has already been taken to ban or highly restrict specific PFAS both domestically and internationally. However, PFAS represent a very diverse group of chemicals with a wide range of uses for which safer and more sustainable alternatives are not yet available - making this a very challenging issue to tackle.

Work is underway across government to help us assess levels of PFAS occurring in the environment, their sources and potential risks to inform future policy and regulatory approaches. In the UK REACH Work Programme for 2021-22, Defra asked the EA and HSE to examine the risks posed by PFAS and develop a 'Regulatory Management Options Analysis' (RMOA). The RMOA will be published in early 2023 and will make recommendations for risk management measures. Defra and the Devolved Administrations will carefully consider its recommendations to inform future PFAS policy.

We have also been engaging closely with external partners over the past few months to inform policy development across a range of chemicals issues, including on PFAS. This builds on the commitment in the 25 Year Environment Plan to set out our strategy to tackling chemicals of concern. No publication date for a Chemicals Strategy has yet been set.