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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of (a) public and (b) civil society engagement on UK REACH testing proposal consultations since 2021.

Animal testing of chemical substances is permitted under UK REACH only as a measure of last resort; this principle is reinforced by the Environment Act 2021. The last resort principle underpins the REACH testing proposal procedure. This procedure already requires that HSE, as the UK REACH Agency, must publish all testing proposals to facilitate the submission of relevant information by third parties. Moreover, UK REACH states that test methods should be regularly reviewed with a view to reducing animal testing and it encourages the use of alternative methods. The Environment Act 2021 includes powers to amend UK REACH and consultation is a legal requirement under those powers.

In 2024 the Government consulted on an Alternative Transitional Registration model (ATRm). The aim of the ATRm is to consider the information needs under UK REACH to provide substance hazard data in the registration dossier for UK REACH transitional registrations (for those substances previously registered on EU REACH), including the need to generate new data. The consultation also included proposals to introduce further protections against unnecessary animal testing as part of our ongoing project to improve UK REACH. We are currently considering our approach to chemicals regulation, including UK REACH. We will provide a summary of the responses during 2025.

Both UK REACH and EU REACH recognise studies performed outside the UK or the EU. This means that there is no need to repeat a study because it was previously carried out elsewhere.