Above: There has been a shift towards selling product into trade retailers such as decorator’s centres
◄ TTJ: DO YOU HAVE ANY INDICATION YET HOW THE NEW GOVERNMENT’S POLICIES MIGHT AFFECT THE COATINGS SECTOR? DP: The PM has been clear that he wants to see a closer relationship with the EU, resetting the somewhat tempestuous relationship the last government had in and after delivering Brexit. Before the election the now Chancellor said she wanted to see a bespoke deal arrived at with the EU on chemical regulation. In theory, if a deal on, for example, data-sharing on the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) database can be struck, or an agreement to align with EU REACH in one form or another is struck, this might obviate the need for a standalone UK REACH system. Indeed, this may be why the government has delayed its response to the
July consultation on the new Alternative Transitional Registration model (ATRm) until sometime in 2025, to see how things play out. However, this is conjecture at the moment. We have also seen the new government’s first Budget, which was extremely disappointing from a business point of view as the revenue raising elements were aimed squarely at industry. More broadly, the Industrial Strategy Green Paper has been published and we have fed into that consultation process, making the point that coatings are essential to numerous other key manufacturing sectors across the economy. New laws on employment rights are in the pipeline and a new body, Skills England, will be set up to deliver reforms to training and apprenticeships. These latter changes could
impact in a variety of ways, some negative, some positive – indeed some could deliver on our five asks – and we need to make our case to government in each instance.
TTJ: YOU HAVE WELCOMED THE GOVERNMENT’S AFOREMENTIONED INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY GREEN PAPER – WHY YOU ARE IN FAVOUR? DP: It is important to have a focus on building UK industry from the very top of government. Moreover, that focus needs to last beyond one parliament. The Green Paper is trying to build a strategic approach for growing UK industry over the next decade. It is holistic in looking at a whole range of policy levers government might be able to pull to help industry grow.
While we welcome these steps forward, we are also clear a lot more work needs to be done to transform what was quite a bare Green Paper into a workable strategy, putting policy meat on the bones of the initial document. It was also surprising to see the strategy include financial services as a sector to be focused on, which seems to dilute the strategy away from ‘industry’ in its traditional sense. Finally, we need to be clear where the coatings sector fits into the bigger picture: as noted earlier, there are few parts of UK manufacturing that will succeed without a strong coatings sector and, for that matter, a strong domestic chemicals sector more widely.
Above: The BCF has welcomed the government’s Industrial Strategy Green Paper TTJ | January/February 2025 |
www.ttjonline.com
TTJ: ASSUMING UK REACH IS STILL GOING AHEAD, HAVE THERE BEEN ANY REVISIONS/UPDATES IN THE LAST YEAR? DP: The previous government carried out a consultation on a new Alternative Transition Registration model (ATRm) for UK REACH just before the General Election.
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