Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of evidence linking chemical flame retardants to developmental and neurological impacts in children.

The Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) has considered the available evidence for phosphate-based flame retardants (PFRs) and the potential for neurodevelopmental effects in children and the developing foetus. PFRs were introduced in the United Kingdom as an alternative to brominated flame retardants as some of these were banned from use or restricted.

The COT reviewed the potential for PFRs to act via similar mechanisms to organophosphate (OP) compounds, such as OP pesticides, as they have some structural similarities.

Overall, the COT concluded that the available evidence indicates that PFRs do not pose a risk of developmental toxicity at anticipated exposure levels and that PFRs were very unlikely to share the neurodevelopmental effects of other OP compounds. However, the COT could not exclude the possibility that PFRs could produce neurodevelopmental toxicity by some other mechanism. Further information is available in the COT’s Statement on phosphate-based flame retardants and the potential for neurodevelopmental toxicity, a copy of which is attached.