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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 29 June 2020 to Question 64285 on chemicals: regulation, by when she plans that (a) the Health & Safety Executive and (b) the Environment Agency will be fully staffed to deliver the post-transition Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals.

We have been working closely with the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency and are confident that they will have the right resources in place to carry out their responsibilities in relation to REACH from 1 January 2021. Further recruitment is planned after the end of the Transition Period to ensure both organisations have the right capability and capacity for anticipated increase in work load over the coming years. We will keep this situation under review and make further resources available as needed subject to the outcome of the Spending Review.

Training for staff recruited over the past 18 months has been ongoing and planning for new recruitment includes training time ahead of peaks in workload. There will be a comprehensive training plan for new recruits. The length of time to train individual new recruits will depend on the nature of the role and the background and skills of the successful candidates.