Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of British business on ensuring that UK chemicals regulations do not enable chemicals which do not meet EU regulations to be exported to the UK for sale and processing.

After the end of the transition period, the UK will establish its own independent chemicals regulatory framework for Great Britain, UK REACH. UK REACH will retain both the fundamental approach and key principles of EU REACH, with its aims of ensuring a high level of protection of human health and the environment. All restrictions (and other measures) that are in force in EU REACH at the end of the transition period will be automatically carried over into UK law.

UK REACH will retain the “no data, no market” principle, which underpins effective chemicals management by industry and regulator. This means that under UK REACH, every manufacturer or importer will be responsible for ensuring that the chemicals they produce and use do not adversely affect human health of the environment and will need to supply the Health and Safety Executive, the regulator, with the necessary information on a chemical’s properties and hazards, and how it can be used safely

The provisions for UK REACH were drawn up in close co-operation with the Devolved Administrations and the Administrations have given their formal consent to a single GB-wide set of regulations.

We have also engaged closely with representatives from British businesses on this issue and other issues through our extensive stakeholder network of trade associations, representative organisations and individual companies.