Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 16 June 2021 to Question 14142 on Chemicals: Health and Wildlife, when she expects the UK Health Security Agency to publish the biomonitoring data collected on the exposure of UK citizens to chemicals under (a) Horizon 2020, (b) the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative and (c) the Partnership for Chemicals Risk Assessment.

As part of the Human Biomonitoring for Europe (HBM4EU) project, funded under Horizon 2020, the feasibility of integrating human biomonitoring data into an existing United Kingdom health examination survey was explored. However, no UK biomonitoring data was collected in the project.

As a result of the HBM4EU work carried out by the UK Health Security Agency in collaboration with Imperial College London, a human biomonitoring module was implemented into the NHS Health Survey for England 2022/23 programme. Samples collected in this study are currently being analysed to ascertain exposure within England to a number of priority substances. This data for England will be integrated into the Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals alongside that of other participating countries.

Data on background levels of metals, bisphenols, and phthalates in the population samples are expected to be published by Autumn 2026, with data on per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances and flame retardants to follow at a later stage.