Thread by @pmdfoster

NEW: UK gov is to give biz another two years to adjust to post-#Brexit UK REACH chemicals safety database that industry warned would cost £1bn to needlessly duplicate EU REACH...more encouraging 'pragmatism' /1

ft.com/content/199276…

This was slipped out y'day (no fanfare, you note) in a letter from George Eustice, environment secretary, to Chemical Industries Association @See_Chem_Bus acknowledging the huge cost of the scheme/2

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

@See_Chem_Bus Regular readers will recall that back in February, 25 industry bosses wrote to government demanding a radical rethink of the plan to essentially duplicate the EU's REACH safety database...warning it was going to cost £1bn for zero gain /3

ft.com/content/b28a44…

@See_Chem_Bus The difficulty is that since the UK decided to leave EU REACH as part of #Brexit the UK companies no longer had access to the underlying safety data which costs $$$$ to generate. So was gonna spend a bomb redoing it just to repopulate the new UK copycat /4

@See_Chem_Bus Initially companies had til Oct 28 this year to do nominal registrations, before providing that expensive supporting data by Oct 2023. The government is now "minded" to push that to Oct 2025, pending a review on exactly what data is needed. /5

@See_Chem_Bus We don't have details on that...BUT...reading Eustice letter it says it will "reduce the need
for replicating EU REACH data packages"...which was a key industry demand back in February /6

@See_Chem_Bus The government will have to balance this with demands of environmental groups that in March this year demanded that there was no watering down of the UK REACH proposals.../7

ft.com/content/20565d…

@See_Chem_Bus The @GreenAllianceUK think tank's policy analyst @zoeavison says any future model must require companies “to continue to provide safety information” as a condition of access to the market. So a hint of wiggle room there, I think /8

@See_Chem_Bus @GreenAllianceUK @zoeavison Why has all this taken so long? It's now December...so 10 months since @See_Chem_Bus and others wrote demanding action...well, lots of Whitehall fisticuffs between Biz Dept and Defra and some very straight talking behind the scenes from business es /9

@See_Chem_Bus @GreenAllianceUK @zoeavison The thing to remember is that chemicals are used in everything -- from car paints to contact lenses -- and most have international supply chains and uses. So will have to comply with EU rules anyway coz that's 450m consumers, UK is only 55m. So a bespoke UK regime is nuts/10

@See_Chem_Bus @GreenAllianceUK @zoeavison That's why before Brexit BOTH biz and green groups were aligned on it being sensible that UK would stay aligned to EU rules...and my guess is that, quietly, that's where end up. Alignment, by force of gravity, that never speaks its name (but spares industry wasting money). ENDS