There is no doubt that REACH is complex but maintaining a comparable scheme to the European Union will help UK businesses to meet one set of scheme rules rather than two sets, if the UK chose to create its own scheme.
How far will the UK’s ability to effectively transpose REACH depend on negotiations with other Member States and the nature of the UK’s future relationship with the EU (e.g. Single Market membership)? Regardless of the outcome of negotiations the starting point for any UK based REACH scheme must be to shadow, as far as is practicably possible, the European Union scheme, reflecting the treatment of substances and chemicals in terms of registration, authorisation and restriction.
The UK cannot run its own scheme in isolation to the rest of the world. Our trading relationships are embedded with those of other countries and a scheme needs to have mutual recognition with other countries allowing transferability between different countries, and support good effective business practice to enhance trade.
In a single market there needs to be a single scheme. Therefore the UK needs to shadow the EU REACH scheme as far as is possible.
What role should the devolved administrations play in setting the regulatory environment in this area? How should any divergences in policy be managed?
Devolved administrations should ensure that any locally developed scheme has mutual recognition between different countries and different trading blocs in order to support national business interests, reduce bureaucracy, avoid duplication and enable the continuation of effective trading relationships.
Policy divergence, where it exists, should be agreed both within the devolved administration as well as between different administrations to ensure continuance of comparability and mutual recognition of such schemes.
The key approach would be to agree the purpose, scope and underlying principles of such schemes and then to allow reasonable and proportionate divergence of processes but not principles to ensure the continuation of scheme alignment.
B. ADMINISTRATIVE, POLICY AND REGULATORY IMPLICATIONS
How should administrative and enforcement responsibilities, which are currently being carried out by the European Commission or EU Agencies (such as ECHA), be transferred to domestic bodies?
The UK Competent authority should take over responsibility for administrative and enforcement responsibilities in a phased manner over time. The first phase would be for the UK Competent authority to shadow the decisions of ECHA in terms of registration, authorisation and restriction of chemicals.
Over time the UK Competent authority would review the decisions of ECHA, supported by an independent technical panel drawn from industry and the scientific community, who would review ECHA’s decision and whether to adopt these into the UK REACH system.
What are the likely implications for industry in terms of regulation, environmental and safety standards? While EU harmonisation on regulations is helpful, for certain products industry simply abides by the most stringent country-specific rules for products that will then be sold across different markets. For example, where one country requires additional product modification then many manufacturers will work to the highest safety standards and replicate this in other products sold throughout a region.
We would encourage the UK to either have harmonised regulations in the UK or less stringent standards where applicable – i.e. standards should not be any stricter than current EU rules to avoid gold plating.
Does the UK Government have the requisite expertise and resources to take on these tasks? This is a question for Government.
C. FUTURE OF THE CHEMICALS INDUSTRY
What scope is there for the UK to pursue a divergent approach to chemicals regulation from the EU once the process of leaving has been completed?
The challenge for UK Government will be to continue to maintain the principles of REACH and ensure that UK businesses
LINK
www.parliament.uk/business/ committees/committees-a-z/ commons-select/environmental- audit-committee/inquiries/ parliament-2015/inquiry2/
are not disadvantaged by creating a new, divergent scheme that has little transferability with the existing European Union scheme or little mutual recognition while at the same time ensuring that small businesses are not overly penalised by the high costs of entry into such a UK scheme.
What principles should a UK chemicals regulation regime follow? Chemical regulation should seek to continue to provide high standards of assurance and protection for end users of products and also for employees working with chemical substances and mixtures.
Any regulation should be reasonable, proportionate to the risk, and measured.
What are the likely practical implications of having a UK-only chemicals regulatory policy for: The Environment? Public Safety? UK Industry?
Although there are benefits in having a chemicals regulatory scheme only for the UK, the disadvantages are that this works against the interest of British business and therefore against the national interest as it means that businesses either have to work to two sets of regulatory policies or are prevented from accessing or continue to access certain markets if compliance with both schemes is unfeasible or impractical.
What key features should any new regime have to ensure these are not compromised? Any new regime should have access to sufficient technical information to ensure their decisions are supported by robust and reliable scientific evidence.
LUBE MAGAZINE NO.139 JUNE 2017
59
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