EU: Regulation on Chemicals

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I touched on the matter of cost earlier, but the noble Lord will appreciate that this is definitively a complex area, regardless of how we regulate it. Chemicals are a complicated business and they need careful attention. However, I am now going to go into some technical language.

Adding a substance to annexe 14 is a multi-stage process involving several factors. The ECHA has recently finished conducting a public consultation on its draft recommendation. It will then consider the opinion of the member state committee in its final recommendation to the European Commission. It is important to stress that this is a recommendation. The ECHA does not have the power to ban a chemical. It is the European Commission, in conjunction with member states and the European Parliament, which decides whether to take a recommendation forward to add a chemical to annexe 14. I emphasise that if a substance is added to the annexe, it does not constitute a ban. Instead, it is the trigger for industry to make the case for continued authorised use of a chemical.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend’s quote from the trade association not a classic example of how big business loves regulation which destroys small business and removes its competition? What has happened to the Government’s initiative to stop the continuing gold-plating of legislation from Europe? Is it simply to say that nothing can be done because we cannot change European regulations?

[Lord De Mauley]

As my noble friend asks about gold- plating, perhaps I may say that REACH is a directly acting regulation so there is little scope for gold-plating. However, the UK approach is in fact the opposite of that; for example, our approach to enforcement is to help companies get back into compliance. My noble friend might like to know that the Environment Agency has developed helpful tools for that process. It uses its expertise to look for illegal use of restricted chemicals, and it can then focus on suspected wrongdoing with little or no burden on compliant companies.