Chemical pollution is one of the greatest threats to our health and environment, and the regulations that keep it in check are only as strong as the chemical classification system that underpins them.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is responsible for some of Great Britain’s most critical chemical safety processes: identifying which chemicals are hazardous, managing known hazards (like biocides which are designed kill organisms such as rats, fungus or bacteria), and the export of hazardous chemicals. The HSE have introduced a new piece of legislation to change these three processes: The Chemicals (Health and Safety) (Amendment, Consequential and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026 draft Statutory Instrument (SI). This SI arrives with promises of efficiency and streamlined decision-making. In practice, it risks delivering the opposite: a slower, less accountable system for managing some of the most hazardous chemicals on the market.
This is not a minor technical fix. The draft SI amends three significant pieces of assimilated law: Classification, Labelling and Packaging of Substances and Mixtures Regulation (GB CLP), Biocidal Products Regulation (GB BPR) and Prior Informed Consent Regulation (PIC), which are based on EU regulations designed to protect people and the environment from some of the most harmful chemicals available.
Removing safeguards in the name of efficiency
The central problem is this: the draft SI removes statutory time limits and replaces clear obligations with discretionary processes. Under current GB CLP regulations, the HSE is required to prepare a Technical Report within six months of a relevant opinion from the European Chemicals Agency’s Risk Assessment Committee (RAC). That time limit is removed in the draft SI, with no replacement deadline offered.
In its place, the HSE would be required to produce a work plan, but with no statutory requirements regarding its contents, no deadline for publication, and no specific time period it must cover (see Figure 1 for timeline comparison). Proposals from unspecified “states and territories” around the world could be considered for inclusion in the work plan, but there is no guarantee that all EU classifications, the most relevant and scientifically rigorous reference point for GB regulation, would be adopted, or adopted promptly.
Figure 1. Comparison of classification timelines using the current process and the “fast-track” process proposed in the Draft SI
The work plan problem
At the moment HSE have to consider all opinions on classification from the Risk Assessment Committee of the European Chemicals Agency who hold the most data available on chemicals. The process could no doubt be streamlined, but the current regulation has a robust clear obligation to consider all opinions within a time limit (see Figure 1) and as a result divergence with the EU on calssifications has been minimised. The new work plan mechanism is presented as a way to prioritise and sequence regulatory activity instead of having consider all opinions in a set time frame (see Figure 1). But there is a cautionary precedent worth examining: the UK REACH Work Programme. That programme has been repeatedly delayed, in some cases by as much as eleven months for what should be an annual plan and has resulted in just two restriction decisions over four years, compared to thirteen in the EU over the same period.
If the CLP work plan follows a similar trajectory, the consequences are serious. Hazardous chemicals could remain in use for years, as they are not recognised as hazards in Great Britain. Supply chains would lack the information they need to manage risk, and without a chemical first being recognised as a hazard in Great Britain, regulators would not have the ability to require its removal from sensitive products like food packaging or toys. And the longer GB classification diverges from EU standards, the greater the friction for businesses trading across both markets, including those operating across the GB-Northern Ireland border, where EU CLP rules continue to apply.
Governance and oversight concerns
The draft SI also entrenches a concerning governance structure in which the HSE acts as both policy lead and regulator. By granting broad discretion over work plan content, the SI effectively allows the HSE to determine not just how classifications are made, but whether they are progressed at all. Scrutiny of the regulation change has also been inadequate. The draft SI was not available to devolved administrations’ ministers or scrutiny committees when they met in early February, prompting the Scottish Parliament’s Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee to query how EU alignment would be achieved and the basis for fast-tracking decisions.
The efficiency case is unproven
The Explanatory Memorandum frames the draft SI as a route to more efficient chemical regulation. But efficiency is only demonstrable when it can be evidenced with a clear baseline, measurable outcomes, and a mechanism for reporting progress. None of these are present here. There has been no impact assessment, no sufficient costing of the regulatory processes required, and no monitoring mechanism to track whether GB classifications keep pace with the EU. Instead the draft SI is adding stages, broadening the pool of jurisdictions, and removing time limits, this does not self-evidently reduce burdens… and under full cost recovery, any increased costs would ultimately fall on businesses.
Playing with the regulations that protect children from harmful chemicals in toys
Deciding which chemicals are hazardous and what constitutes hazardous, through CLP, is critical to managing chemicals and underpins other health, safety and environmental regulations such as UK REACH and product controls (see Figure 2 for regulations that rely on CLP). For example, to protect children from growth and developmental issues caused by endocrine disrupting chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA), there is a new EU regulation to prohibit these chemicals in toys. This product regulation relies on chemicals being recognized and classified as endocrine disruptors in EU CLP. But because the UK has not adopted this hazard classification these hormone disrupting chemicals can still appear in toys in Great Britain, but not toys in Northern Ireland. Due to the regulation’s central functions in protecting health and environment the draft SI risks undermining product safety, trade, worker health and our health and environment.
Figure 2. Diagram showing several regulations that are linked to CLP
A better path forward
Fidra recognises the complexity and resource intensity of delivering chemical regulation post-EU Exit, but the solution is not to build in ambiguity and remove accountability. Regulatory efficiency would be better served by a clear commitment to aligning GB classifications with EU decisions as the default, including adopting the new hazard classes, with well-defined reasons for any exceptions and transparent reporting on any divergence.
The draft SI is not fit for purpose. It leaves UK businesses navigating unnecessary uncertainty while risking health environmental protections. Instead we need a new approach and a firm commitment to aligning GB and EU chemical regulations, this would enable trade with the EU and on the internal market, allow us to swiftly adopt hazard classifications based on transparent data rich regulation and ensure workers, children and the environment are better protected from hazardous chemicals.
Learn more about Fidra’s work on tackling chemical pollution by visiting our project page.