UK Chemicals Sector Faces 2-Billion Pounds Brexit Red Tape Bill

The chemicals sector of the United Kingdom faces 2 billion pounds of post-Brexit bureaucracy, which doubles the cost of initial industry estimates, as the United Kingdom puts in place its own regulatory regime.

As Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss promised to cut European Union red tape during the Tory leadership campaign, the cost of local United Kingdom red tape after Brexit is increasing. A government impact assessment has put the central estimate of the cost of registering chemicals on a new database in the United Kingdom, often doubling existing registrations with the European Union, at 2 billion pounds.

In 2021, the chemicals industry warned that the new regime, which is known as UK Reach, and will cost around 1 billion pounds, but the government now accepts that many more substances will possibly need to be registered than previously thought.

The United Kingdom regime will be much more expensive than the European Union Reach system, and British companies have spent 500 million pounds complying with the Brussels regime over the past decade, which gained access to 27 markets.

UK ministers are planning to extend the deadline for registering with reach in the United Kingdom to spread the costs, and the government of the United Kingdom has pushed back the requirement for complete datasets by at least two years until October 2025.

The Chemical Industries Association said it wanted strong regulation, but unnecessary mass registration does not equate to health standards and higher safety.