Unless the Government can negotiate continued UK
participation in REACH, the EU’s chemical
regulation system, chemicals registered by UK companies won’t be
valid for sale in the EU and the UK will have incomplete safety
information about chemicals being used in the UK after
Brexit.
The House of Lords EU Energy and Environment
Sub-Committee highlights in its report Brexit:
chemical regulation that current arrangements
for chemical regulation are rooted in a cross-EU system known as
REACH, which ensures that chemicals on the market are safe to
use.
The chemicals sector is the UK’s second biggest manufacturing
industry, and exported £18 billion of products to the EU last
year, so it is vital for both human and environmental health
that these substances are regulated safely after Brexit, in a way
that allows chemical trade between the UK and EU to continue.
As part of the REACH regulations, chemicals can’t be sold in the
EU unless they are registered by a company or representative
based in the EU.This means UK-based chemical companies risk
losing access to the EU market unless they transfer their
registrations, but the Committee found that this may not
be possible before the UK leaves the EU, creating the risk of a
trading hiatus.
Despite the importance of the chemicals sector to the UK’s
economy, the Committee concludes that the Government’s
preparations for addressing the Brexit challenge are not
progressing quickly enough. This risks human and
environmental health, as well as disruption to the many supply
chains that rely on access to chemicals produced across the
EU.
If the UK cannot secure continued access to REACH, the Committee
expresses concern about the Government’s alternative plan to
create its own database of chemicals approved for use in the UK.
In evidence given to the Committee the Minister responsible said
they planned to simply ‘copy and paste’ information from the EU’s
database, which the Committee concludes is not credible and
raises serious legal concerns.
, Chairman of the Committee,
said:
“Chemical regulation might seem like a niche area
of Brexit considerations, but chemicals are used to make products
that we all use every day, and the chemical sector is key to the
UK’s economy. At the moment they’re regulated by REACH, which
combines legislation with an EU database, an EU regulator and the
EU Single Market to keep us all safe.
“Although we welcome the Government’s aim to remain part of the
REACH system after Brexit, its negotiation red line on the UK’s
membership of the Single Market makes that highly unlikely. That
means it urgently needs to be working on a Plan B, and that
simply hasn’t happened, which leaves the sector facing a huge
cliff-edge on the day we leave the EU.”
The Committee is calling on the Government to:
- urgently
explain how its independent regulatory regime would work;
- put
forward a more credible plan for collecting information on
chemicals;
-
identify which UK agency will take on the role of chemical
regulation; and
- enable UK
chemical businesses, including SMEs, to take steps to maintain
their access to the EU market ahead of exit day.
