Draft Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 General Committees

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. It is very good to see the Minister back in her proper place and to join colleagues in debating the draft regulations. The Minister and other hon. Members will be pleased that I can confirm that we will not oppose the regulations, but before we pack up and leave the room, I want to say a few things that it is important to keep in mind.

As the Minister said, the draft regulations correct the errors left by the retained 2019 POP regulation, including deficiencies in relation to the perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances PFOS and PFOA. Moves to ensure that the levels of harmful chemicals entering our environment and natural world are taken seriously and, importantly, reduced were a key feature of His Majesty’s Government’s first 25-year environment plan.

That plan was published back in 2018, before I was elected to this House by the good people of Newport West, but I made a point of reading it in considerable detail upon my appointment to the shadow ministry. It committed to a new chemicals strategy to achieve the goal of reducing the level of said chemicals entering our environment. That is a good and noble aim, and it has my support. However, as the Minister knows, the strategy still has no fixed publication date, despite workshops on it being held in the first half of this year. I would be grateful if she could set out when we will have more information and finally understand the steps that she and her Department will take in the weeks and months ahead.

I note that the regulations come into force on the day after they are made, and I welcome the fact that they extend to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I am a proud supporter of devolution and give thanks for the Welsh Labour Government every day, but it is nice to see something being discussed that applies to one and all, right across the United Kingdom.

The Labour party will not push the regulations to a vote—they are a formal and relatively benign set of measures—but we urge the Government, and particularly the Minister, to keep in mind the need to really deliver on the promises made. The future of our planet and our environment depends on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

First, I thank the hon. Member for Newport West for her kind wishes. I must say that it is great to be back and to find her still here so that we can have our debates. I am delighted that the Opposition will not oppose the instrument. These are just technical amendments.

Let me touch on the chemicals strategy, which the hon. Lady rightly referred to. Interestingly, I had a meeting about it just today. It is absolutely correct that we will produce a chemicals strategy. We have committed to doing that and there will be more details about it in due course, to use parliamentary language. Of course, it is complicated, and it is very important to get it right, particularly given that we have left the EU and its registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals, or REACH, system and rolled over those regulations to UK REACH. We are now working on our bespoke system for UK chemicals, and we are working very closely with the industry.

[Ruth Jones]

I understand parliamentary terminology, but the chemicals strategy has no fixed publication date, despite the workshops being held earlier this year. Can I press the Minister on when it will be published? We desperately need it.