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REACH (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2026

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their important contributions and for the careful consideration given to the regulations. I will go through some of the questions and issues raised.

Noble Lords asked about the deadline extension. Clearly, this is now the third time. The deadlines were first altered when we were still preparing for EU exit, to allow businesses enough time to compile and submit the full required information, given the complexity and scale of the task. As I mentioned, there was a further extension in 2023 to address transitional challenges, especially the considerable cost to business of acquiring the additional information. This Government wanted to reassess their broader chemicals policy, and it then

became clear that we could not implement the ATRm in time for the original deadline. We want to get a robust and effective policy framework for the future, which is why we have extended the deadlines.

My noble friend Lord Stansgate in particular asked what guarantee we can give that we will not extend it again. Clearly, we really do not want to do that. I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, that businesses need certainty, and continually moving the goalposts and changing dates does not help, so we have absolutely no intention of extending the deadlines further.

We published our policy conclusions on the ATRm back in March, and that set a firm path forward for government. On the questions around timetables, we are looking to consult very quickly on the legislation in order to bring the model into force next year so that businesses have ample time to prepare for the new deadlines. As I said, we do not plan to bring in any further extensions.

As I said, in March we published the timetable for implementing the alternative transitional registration model. By consulting quickly and then bringing in the new regulations next year, we want to ensure that industry has sufficient time to prepare its registrations so that it is ready to comply with the first revised submission in an orderly way, which is what we want. Now that we have said this is what we will do, we want to consult as quickly as possible.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, asked about the Swiss style and why we could not take that approach to chemicals registration rather than developing a separate UK model. One of the core principles of UK REACH is that it is industry’s primary responsibility to understand and manage the risks of its chemicals, and registration is how it demonstrates that it is doing this. That means submitting data on hazard conclusions and classifications and how it is using chemicals in this country. We need to assure the public and consumers that chemicals are managed safely.

This “no data, no market” approach remains a central part of UK REACH, and that is not embedded in Switzerland’s system in the same way. However, we are exploring whether elements of a Swiss-style approach could help improve the speed and efficiency of UK REACH restriction decision-making, particularly where many GB businesses already comply with EU restrictions and there is no compelling reason to diverge. I hope that helps the noble Baroness, as we are still looking at the options around that.