REACH etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I know that we cannot have normal debates virtually, but I have to say that that last suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, was an absolute disgrace. It would be the end of any chemical companies in Great Britain—the United Kingdom—exporting anywhere else if we were known to have such a lax effort in regulating as not doing any work and just looking at what others are doing. I am afraid that that is simply not good enough.

I should declare an interest in the sense that REACH came into force in 2007, during my period at Defra between 2006 and 2008. In fact, it occasioned one of the very rare visits I ever made to Brussels. I also served on European Union Sub-Committee B under the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and of course I was present when the Minister of State, Thérèse Coffey, and the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, turned up not really knowing what the hell was going on. I do not think they had read any of the briefings.

I challenge the Minister to say whether he has ever read the Lords committee report on Brexit chemicals regulation. It was published before he came into the Lords, of course, but there may be a reference to it in his briefings. It would certainly be worth a read, because we now seem to be producing a new system, at the cost of £1 billion, for nothing new—and it will be a second-rate system that puts people in this country at risk, because chemicals will be offloaded on us during the 300-day period.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, gave us a list of some of the examples of what chemicals are used for. The fact that we have use of more than 23,000 chemicals makes you wonder what they are for. I can tell you about one key chemical that puts at risk the supply of clean water in the UK. We need chemicals to produce clean water. Those chemicals come from the EU. Therefore, this is a really serious issue. Notwithstanding that, as has already been said, it is our second largest manufacturing sector; there are almost 100,000 jobs in the United Kingdom involved in this industry; and we are virtually destroying our opportunities for growth in exports by going along with a second-rate system by pulling out of REACH.

This was all known about. There are no surprises in any of the issues being raised today. It was all detailed during the first inquiry of your Lordships’ Sub-Committee B on Energy and Environment. It was never really taken seriously by Defra—I am not criticising the individuals or the HSE, but I can tell you that the HSE would not be suffering as it is now if the likes of Geoffrey Podger were still the chief executive. This is not a criticism of individuals, but I feel a lack of confidence because the system has been allowed to go into decline. There has been a lack of awareness of safety, whether it is in checking our factories, our pesticides or now our chemicals. We are clearly not ready for leaving the REACH regime on 31 December. Our people will be put at risk.

We might as well not beat about the bush. There is no easy answer to this, and it is not, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, simply relying on what others have regulated while we allow a free for all in this country, which is what will happen under the 300-day limit. I am full of foreboding, because this is one of the great areas which this House has debated more than once, it is not politically sexy to anybody, it sounds boring and technical, yet there is virtually no walk of life, no product—food, clothing, furniture or anything else—in this country that does not require the use of safe chemicals. We will not get that under the second-rate system that the Government are imposing on the United Kingdom.