Author: Sean Kelly (sean.kelly@nanotechia.org)
As part of the NIA’s UK strategy to help Members engage with Brexit and the impact that it may have on their business and the whole nanotechnology sector, the NIA is participating in meetings of the UK Chemicals Stakeholder Forum. The Forum allows discussions between government, regulators and stakeholders to help support chemicals management in the UK.
In the latest meeting, we heard how the UK chemicals sector has managed the Covid crisis, which has impacted the sector in a variety of ways, including having to comply with lockdown and some companies having shifted to manufacturing products to help deal with Covid. Like many other sectors, the chemicals sector is still assessing the long-term impacts that Covid will have, such as increasing the motivation to re-shore production certain key chemicals and how the sector should plan for the future.
The UK Government is updating its Chemicals Strategy, which was last updated in 1999. The work on gathering evidence has been delayed due to Covid, however a call for evidence will be published soon. The NIA will ensure that it submits a response on behalf of the nano sector and will liaise with UK members to get their views.
Brexit
On exiting the EU, the UK remains in the transition period until the end of 2020 and the Government has clearly stated that no extension will be asked for (indeed the end of June was the deadline for an extension request). A extension is considered feasible (from Politico opinion) if a deal is close in December but this would only be tied to advanced deal development.
Four rounds of negotiation between the UK and EU have been held and there is acceptance on both sides for the need to accelerate negotiations to reaching a free trade agreement. The UK REACH regulation will come into force on 1 January 2021, with the Environmental Bill to bring this into law expected to be introduced in Parliament towards the end of September. UK REACH will operate separately from EU REACH. Although it will retain the key principals of EU REACH, the UK regulations will be enforced by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Environment Agency (EA) and there will no role for ECHA or other EU bodies. The capabilities and capacities of these two departments are being increased and the support systems needed are being developed and tested.
There are still ongoing negotiations with the European Commission on data sharing, with various trade bodies working with both sides to help make the argument that negotiation is in both parties’ interests. The NIA will make representation through the Stakeholder Forum around nanoforms within UK REACH to ensure that the work undertaken to comply with EU REACH is carried over as appropriate and also to ensure that nanomaterials are not treated differently in the UK.
The NIA will continue to represent its members in the UK and those continuing to trade with the UK to ensure that nano is not neglected in the UK’s Chemical Strategy and not negatively impacted in the introduction of UK REACH.
