Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 5 September 2024 to Question 2887 on Food and Cosmetics: Pollutants, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the International Agency for Research on Cancer's classification of titanium dioxide as possibly carcinogenic to humans.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer conducts hazard assessments on substances in all applications. The Joint WHO/FAO Expert Committee on Food Additives as risk assessors looked at the safety of substances when used as a food additive, and found no concerns, maintaining the existing acceptable daily intake.

The United Kingdom’s independent scientific committees, the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Foods, Consumer Products and the Environment and the Committee on Mutagenicity of Chemicals in Foods, Consumer Products and the Environment, have also assessed the safety of E 171 titanium dioxide, and concluded that ‘exposure of food grade titanium dioxide from the diet is unlikely to present a risk to health of the UK population’.