March 10, 2020: The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) presented 'A forward look on UK Chemicals policy' as part of NIA member Covance's meeting 'EU CHEMICALS SYMPOSIUM 2020'. A few notes of the key points are presented below and the slides are available HERE.
- From January 1, 2021, the UK will launch a national chemicals regulatory framework, called UK REACH. It has the aim to replicate much of EU REACH without changes. It is recognised that not all substances registered within EU REACH will become registered in the new UK platform and UK users are advised to ensure they can retain access to required chemicals.
- An online platform is under development in which all substance registrations must be completed, with it anticipated to be live by January 1. No clarification was available on how soon before January 1 the platform would be open for use.
- Registrants have either 120 or 180 days to present initial data, and 2 years to complete the dossier
- Fees will be equivalent to the current ECHA process and this will result in 2 x fees for registration in both the UK and EU systems.
- Access to data and associated costs has not yet been fully determined and this is an ongoing matter.
- With regard to Safety Data Sheets (SDS), there are no planned changes, with the intention for these to be as similar as possible
NIA will continue to be fully engaged in development of the UK REACH framework and will keep Members advised of all progress, potential impact and actions required.
