Chemicals industry facing ‘cliff edge’ as Ministers move too slowly

THE UK’S chemicals industry is facing “a huge cliff-edge” on the day after Brexit, with possible loss of access to an £18bn export market and risks to human safety, a parliamentary report has warned.

The House of Lords EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee said Government plans for the post-Brexit regulation of the industry are “not progressing quickly enough”, risking disruption to supply chains for companies which rely on chemicals produced across the EU.

And it warned that a plan to simply “cut and paste” information from EU databases to create a new independent register of chemicals approved for use in the UK is “not credible and raises serious legal concerns”.

The cross-party committee said it is “highly unlikely” that the Government will succeed in its stated aim of negotiating continued UK participation in the EU chemical regulation system known as Reach after Brexit.

If this cannot be achieved, chemicals registered by UK companies will no longer be valid for sale in the EU after Brexit, while Britain will have incomplete safety information about chemicals being used in the UK.

Under the terms of the Reach system, UK-based companies risk losing access to the EU market unless they transfer registrations to one of the 27 remaining countries.

But the report warned that this may not be possible before the scheduled date of withdrawal from the EU on March 29, 2019.

This creates the danger that the UK’s second biggest manufacturing industry will experience a “trading hiatus” lasting weeks or months following Brexit.