The UK government has announced that it intends to forge its own regulatory regime for the UK’s chemicals industry following Brexit.
ICIS reported on comments made by UK parliamentary under secretary of state for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Rebecca Pow in May, who said that the government had decided that “the benefits of having control of our own laws outweigh the costs”.
However, those in the chemicals industry don’t necessarily agree with this stance, as evidenced by the response from Peter Newport, chief of the Chemical Business Association (CBA).
He told the news provider that this decision “effectively prevents access to EU markets for many UK companies and makes continued access more expensive for others”.
Another potential issue is that many within the chemicals industry have taken little action to prepare for the UK diverging from the EU’s REACH regime. This is because remaining aligned with these regulations and maintaining access to the EU REACH scheme was named as a priority from early in Brexit negotiations.
However, there could be opportunities for reshoring some of the country’s chemical industry, Frost & Sullivan recently suggested. The organisation noted that the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted some of the weaknesses in the global supply chain and this, coupled with political and financial incentives, could encourage more firms to return to the UK.
In fact, the Financial Times recently suggested that the government is already making plans to reshore some chemical production from the likes of China to make the nation less reliant on foreign chemical production and toll processing services.