BPCA Field Officer, Natalie Bungay, went along to the HSE's Chemicals EU Exit Workshop, in Liverpool on 1 August 2018, to find out how chemical regulation could be affected if we left the EU without a deal.

The Health & Safety Executive's Chemicals Regulation Division (CRD) held a one-day stakeholder workshop covering EU Exit and its impact on:

• The Biocidal Products Regulations (BPR)
• Classification Labelling and Packaging (CLP)
• Prior Informed Consent regulations (PIC)

The workshop focused on planning for a contingency scenario (a "no deal" after Brexit).

It was only recently that the HSE was given permission to hold an event like this, ie discussing what may or may not happen. HSE expect to be doing many more of this type of event as the months tick by.

The event was mostly aimed at the stakeholders such as manufacturers of products, sellers and traders as the EU Exit will affect them the most.

The big questions on everyone's minds are, where are they going to get their products authorised, what admin systems will be used, and the potential for "dual authorisation" via not only the UK but also the EU (if they want to trade in the EU that is).

This could see prices for registrations of products go up and, the assumption is that we, the end users of those products, may also see an increase in pesticide pricing to cover this extra cost.

In terms of pesticides, the Control of Pesticide Regulations (COPR) is being superseded by the Biocides Product Regulations (BPR). We asked Karen Clayton, CRD Director, will this continue no matter the outcome of negotiations?

The answer was “yes, quite simply! The COPR will be obsolete at some point”.