REACH (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2026

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am most grateful to the Minister for presenting these regulations before the Committee. I probably ought to say that I was a Member of the European Parliament when the original REACH agreement and regulations came forward.

I am also grateful to the Minister for commenting on the concerns raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. I have just two questions on that. First, the Minister said right at the end that legislation and guidance will be published next year. I do not sit on that committee but, from the way I read that report, the final date of the extended timetable and when it will reach its long-term end remain a concern. The committee asked us to raise—I think it is a very good point—the intended timetable for the full implementation of UK REACH. What is the endgame?

I am grateful to the Chemical Industries Association—CIA—for the briefing that it shared with me in preparation for today. It is fair to place on the record that the chemical sector not only is critical for the functioning of the UK economy but underpins manufacturing, clean technologies and many of the Government’s priority growth sectors.

At the time that Britain left the European Union, I personally was led to believe and we were promised—I realise that there was a different, Conservative Government—that there would be friction-free trade with the European Union. However, we have ended up with duplicate registers, therefore duplicate costs, and a lot of increased costs to the sector in that regard. Obviously, we are all paying that in the way of substances such as paint and other toxic substances that we use. I do not know whether the noble Baroness’s department has made an estimate—it might well be in the papers, but I did not see it—of the current cost of having two registers.

The chemicals industry believes that the regulations before us this afternoon should be approved. For the reasons the Minister set out, it is so important to have the necessary extension to the UK REACH registration and compliance deadlines—again, we are going on to finalise the approach on the ATRm. However, the industry has raised with me—I want to share this with the Minister this afternoon—the fact that the revised timetable remains challenging. Although the regulations extend the first registration deadline by three years, they also compress subsequent deadlines into a much shorter period, which will put enormous pressure on the companies concerned. The industry also says, more importantly, that approval should not be interpreted as meaning that the underlying challenges have been resolved. There remains significant uncertainty regarding access to registration data, the cost of compliance and the risk that businesses could be forced to infringe intellectual property rights in order to meet UK registration requirements.

Therefore, I press the Minister to make sure that the Government provide certainty regarding future registration requirements by three specific asks this afternoon. First, avoid placing businesses in situations where compliance conflicts with intellectual property rights, ensuring lawful and affordable access to the data needed for registration. This is currently not the case. Secondly, and alternatively, look to other economies such as Switzerland, which has successfully implemented a model that supports innovation and competitiveness and strengthens supply chain resilience, all while maintaining the same robust health and environmental protections as the EU. Thirdly, monitor whether the compressed timetable from 2029 to 2031, which the Minister set out, remains realistic for both industry and regulators. The goal here is not less regulation or further delays but a model, like the one that exists in Switzerland, that protects the environment, for the reasons the Minister set out, while allowing businesses to drive growth, which lies at the heart of the Government’s priority in economic policy.

I believe the outline model that the Minister has set out this afternoon still leaves Great British manufacturers and importers facing avoidable cost—which they were specifically told would not be the case at the time that Britain left the European Union—inhibits the introduction of new products to the Great British market and leaves serious questions over proprietary data requirements, despite the goalposts on regulating chemicals via REACH having shifted to EU alignment by default.

I welcome the opportunity to raise these issues today. On 13 May 2026 the ACA, the Alliance of Chemical Associations, wrote to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the honourable Emma Hardy, to raise these points, but they are very pertinent as well to the regulations before us this afternoon. The Government, and particularly the department, owe it to the chemicals industry to make sure that we can reduce this dichotomy of having two registers and the duplication of costs that it currently has to face.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope I will not detain the Committee for long, but this is a very important and intricate area. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has great experience of this from her time at the European Parliament. I remember visiting the European Parliament—it must have been almost 20 years ago—when REACH was being debated. It was, and I believe it remains, the largest piece of legislation ever passed by the European Parliament.

I did not have the benefit of the CIA briefing, but I will take the opportunity of paying tribute to the work of the CIA, because it does a great deal in this area and I have placed that on record. I have worked with it in the past, as with other organisations such as the Society of Chemical Industry and scientific bodies such as the Royal Society of Chemistry, which 20 years ago were taking a very close interest in this subject. I am glad that my noble friend the Minister referred to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, because it has quite rightly raised some concerns.

My points are very brief. First, I understand the case for extending the current deadlines in the way that my noble friend has set out. I also understand the case for aligning the UK REACH submission deadlines with the development and implementation of the alternative transitional registration model. But I hope my noble friend will understand if I say that we hope that we will not be here in a few years with my noble friend making the case for further extensions to the deadlines. If there is any word of reassurance she can give on that, I would be very grateful.

My second point is to ask whether UK businesses still have difficulty accessing the hazard data required to support registrations. As I understand it, the data is still held by EU-based consortia under the provisions of EU REACH.

Thirdly—I apologise to the Minister in advance if I am wrong—am I right that in the last month 15 substances of very high concern were added to the UK list? I am encouraged by nodding elsewhere along the Benches. If this is true, can my noble friend say a little more about what the substances are? I understand that they are the first major additions to that list for some time. It would be interesting for the Committee to know the reasons for it and to be reassured that there are very good reasons for doing so.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this draft instrument and explaining its purpose. On the Liberal Democrat Benches, we recognise the case for this measure and will support it. We do so because it is a pragmatic step to avoid a cliff edge—not because we believe the current system is in any sense satisfactory.

As described by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, the chemicals sector could be described as the invisible backbone of our economy. It underpins everything from advanced manufacturing to pharmaceuticals, construction and consumer goods. It matters that we get the regulatory framework right, not just for the industry but for the people who work in it, the consumers and, importantly, the environment. The alternative transitional registration model, which the Minister described to us, is intended to reduce unnecessary duplication. According to the Government’s assessment, it could cut one-off industry costs by around 70%, or roughly—I think this is the estimate that the noble Baroness is looking for—around £2 billion. To stop that additional payment is extremely welcome, but businesses need certainty, not a rolling series of extensions that leave everyone guessing what comes next.

We very much appreciate that this Government are having to square the circle of a previous negotiation and a Brexit that we view as the gift that keeps on taking from the British people and from every industry in Great Britain. Nevertheless, I have four questions for the Minister.

First, can she set out the milestones that will determine whether the ATRm is delivered on time, given that the design and implementation are not, as she described, expected to be completed until summer 2027? The Committee needs some confidence that we are moving towards some kind of stable system, not simply pushing the problem further down the road. Will the Minister also confirm how progress will be monitored and how often updates will be published? What will trigger, in turn, some kind of remedial action if the timetable slips? There is a danger of the perception that the sector continues to run on a series of sticking plasters; I am sure she appreciates that.

Secondly, what assurance can she give that any future divergence from EU REACH will be strictly evidence led and transparent? I read somewhere that the system is like reading the description on the back of a book without having any of the information inside the book that is necessary to move at pace. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has already raised concerns about the lack of clarity around the circumstances in which the Government would diverge, and the Office for Environmental Protection has highlighted the problem of new EU hazard classes that have not yet been brought into GB law. How will the Government avoid creating an unpredictable system in which decisions appear to be made case by case, without a clear scientific basis? I think this is something that the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, was reaching towards. If the default position is alignment with EU REACH unless there are compelling reasons to diverge, we need to know what those reasons are, how they will be tested, and how the public and Parliament will be able to scrutinise them.