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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of pursuing an agreement with the EU on data access to reduce the costs of UK Regulation, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals for industrial enterprises.

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU includes a Chemicals Annex to facilitate trade in chemicals. During negotiations the EU did not wish to progress discussions on data sharing. They view access to this data as only for members of the Single Market, and therefore any data sharing arrangement would require the EU to change their very clear position on the matter.