well good morning everybody and welcome uh to uh the latest in a series of uh webinars uh brought
to you by the health and safety executive and from the department of environment food and rural
affairs um the focus again today is regulating chemicals uh after the transition period and my
name is matthew penrose and i'll be your host uh for the session this morning where i'll be joined
by a number of expert colleagues from the health and safety executive and from defra so since the
referendum of 2016 we've been hosting a number of events to support businesses ngos
all people who are interested in working and understanding what the new regulations that will
apply and of course this is the first event where we're actually going to be discussing
the regulations that are actually now in force in great britain and in northern ireland because as
we're all aware at the end of last year we there's a number of significant milestones achieved
uh in the in the brexit negotiations we had a trade and cooperation agreement agreed between
the uk and the eu we also had confirmation of how the northern ireland protocol will work and they
obviously complement the withdrawal agreement that was negotiated some time before that but the main
substantive change is not on the first of january we had a suite of new regulations come into force
in great britain the impact on the supply and use of chemicals in great britain
and obviously what we wanted to explore with you today and understand is help you understand is the
implications of what those regulations mean and of course this is about making sure that society
still has access to the beneficial chemicals that it needs but also to ensure that workers
the public and the environment remain protected and those chemicals remain appropriately regulated
so uh could i have a next slide please um so here's the agenda for uh the next uh three hours
um we're going to be focusing on uh four of the key regimes that uh our own that hse and defra
have the policy responsibility for and for which the health and safety executive will be the will
be the primary regulator we're going to talk about the reach regulations we're going to talk about
the plant protection products regulations classification labeling and packaging and
also biocidal products regulations we've chosen those four because they are the four that we keep
getting uh lots of questions and comments about through our various different engagement forum
and also because we think these are the important ones for this webinar today it's not to say that
there aren't any other ones such as prior informed consent or detergents it's just that we really
wanted to focus on these key uh issues today so how this session is going to run i'll hand over
very shortly to uh dr richard daniels who put some introductory remarks but what we're going to have
is a series of um short presentations followed by a q a session in this main
plenary room this main room that we're in today i will continue to host that through the session
but the feedback from the last session that we did from before christmas is that some
delegates uh would find real value in extending that q a session so what we've got and what you
have access to functionality-wise is you've got access to breakout rooms
so um what we're going to do is that we're going to stay in the main plenary room um until the end
of the reach session and then what i'll do is i'll talk you through you can actually flip between
this room and then a breakout room where alan williams and other reach colleagues will be
sitting in a different room and will continue that q a with you should you wish to do that
so the way to do that is on your panel there's a toggle on the left hand side which talks with the
main live stream room and the breakout rooms and when it comes to that time around 11 o'clock we'll
be supporting you to move across there you can sit in both rooms if you want because um obviously if
you're in the breakout room the main session will be continuing but just to remind everybody else
for last time this whole event will be recorded it will be uploaded back onto the website uh
within uh within the week and people can access that so if you had a particular question that you
wanted on reach you want to go to the breakout room it meant that you missed a few of rachel's
sessions on pesticides you can watch that later but you can flip between the two the only advice
i would give is that obviously if you're running two live streams at the same time your bandwidth
may you need the bandwidth to do that but but try that and see how that goes um we're going to
be taking questions uh all the mics are muted so this is really an interactive event through text
we'll be taking questions through uh the functions that you can write the questions in i know some of
you been submitting questions over recent days and we'll try and pull some of those key themes out
and answer those we won't be um able to respond to everybody directly i know there's a lot of uh
important questions that people have but we won't be able to respond directly after the event i'm
sure you'll appreciate we've got we've got many hundreds and hundreds of questions that come in
but what we will do is look at those review them and try and update the guidance and
improve where we think through any gaps but also throughout the session we'll be actually
highlighting some of our help desks and helplines so if you do actually have a really burning uh
question that you really do need answering and if it's not picked up today please do make sure that
you contact the relevant help desk and they will trigger that and prioritize that to give you the
answer uh that you need uh just gotta quite note i know we have a couple of uh journalist colleagues
uh that are always interested in in in in today's session absolutely great that you're here look
forward to working with you i think that the ask of the journalists on the call is if you do have
any particular inquiries that you'd like please can you use the media inquiries uh email address
at the bottom so our media team can can work with you and get the answers you need and keep the keep
the help desk scientists and technical experts um kind of focused on supporting businesses over the
next few weeks so we will have a comfort break at around 11 30 and then we'll get you away uh by one
so hopefully you'll find it informative we know that the feedback from the last uh meeting that
it was um so without further ado i'll hand you over to dr richard daniels for his opening remarks
thank you matt and can i extend a very warm welcome to you all to another
major webinar event that we are hosting and uh what a great attendance i think uh just before
coming into the session there were over 500 people on and there's probably more than that now for
those of you that haven't encountered me so i'm the director of the chemicals regulation division
in hsa and i've been in post since march last year and i have the responsibility for all of the
functions in the division so not just operational delivery but also policy functions they've been
working very hard as you would imagine in terms of brexit and what the future was looking like
and at the outset um can i just sort of state the commitment that i have colleagues in crd and hsc
have alongside defra the environment agency and other government departments
to work as hard as we are able to to support and guide you now that we're in the new environment
after the transition period has ended there was a tremendous amount of work over many months in
some cases years preparing uh for what the future would be after the referendum results
and that's giving us a very good base on which to help and support you now
that in 2021 we are uh a sovereign nation free of uh membership of the european union
and this seminar in the investment in it is a is a demonstration i believe that the support
of that commitment for those of you that may be in on the webinar may have heard it but if not
one of my aims as director was to make sure that we had as seamless a transition as possible
as we moved out of the transition period and into january and be as ready as we could be to help
and support you and our arrangements in hsc were independent of whatever the outcome of that deal
was and therefore we are in a good position so the good news is we do have a trade and cooperation
agreement so for the sector there are no tariffs uh there are no quotas so that is very positive
but a full recognition that not everything that uk wanted was achieved so it is clear
uh you know there will be additional costs of processes and interactions with the eu
the deal did not include data sharing access particularly for reach data etc
and the eu has been very clear that that is a benefit for member states and not to be
extended to third countries so that's the starting point we have to operate within that environment
so what those costs will be how that will operate will clearly become uh evident as we move forward
and governments will be looking to see what support it can provide i'm sure to industry
and we will be looking as to how we can assist as the regulator in that new environment so a
recognition some very very big challenges facing but also some opportunities for the sector
and for our country as we go forward but today is really about the regulations that are now in place
the practical impact of them and assisting you to comply with them so it's not a forum for some of
the discussions really your comments about some of those bigger issues not to dismiss them but
i would suggest that today isn't the place for those to be aired this is about helping
you with the practicalities and answering your immediate questions so working alongside the
environment agency with defra with the developed administrations in england scotland and supporting
northern ireland my focus now is so how will hsc operate as the independent standalone chemicals
regulator and making sure we are aiming towards being as efficient and as effective as we can
going forward and maintaining a lot of the very good track record we have as that regulator
in the previous scenario when we were members of the european union so building on the good that we
had but aiming to be the best so we are starting from a point where a lot of the processes and the
legislation hasn't changed the environment and the authorities have changed but not in terms of the
requirements and the principles that was lifted and shifted from eu into gb uh and uk legislation
we will need investment in hse but my aim is that i can transform our performance to be a
high performing globally respected and globally connected regulator in the new environment that
we find ourselves so i'm very keen for example to explore what the the chemical
analytics does offer us in terms of regulatory cooperation i want to be exploring how we can
continue to mainly attain links both with european member states bilaterally or collectively
and through other forums for example the oecd the united nations and other mechanisms
so really what we have to do is make sure that we have a strong infrastructure that replaces
that that we had in europe and the ro and the role of the ekka played we are not setting out
to replicate ekka in terms of all of the functions uh the size and scale of its workforce but we need
to do what we need to do to operate effectively in great britain and to support northern ireland
i'll just say as part of that it's clear that we won't automatically be following
european union decisions but we will be tracking them very
closely we need to know what is happening in europe and decisions that they are making and
we have to see what connections we we can make to see what is coming up that's important not so
we can automatically follow but to consider the impact and implications for gb and and clearly
northern ireland will be following uh eu and that interface between northern ireland and ourselves
but also because we are starting from a position of close alignment
uh what that means for decisions that may be making across the the english channel in the rsc
what that means for us and what impact that may have on divergence and that's not just
on any individual decision but that's broadly on what's the approach that europe has taken
and if they change some of their methodologies etc but in terms of some closer to home and perhaps
more immediate priorities we have delivered the building blocks in place that we could function on
the 1st of january and i know that some of you are interacting with them and for example through the
reach i.t registration systems that defra have led on so we will be looking to develop our iit and
digital platforms we will be looking to recruit further to strengthen our basis we've recruited
over 100 people joined hsc specifically for chemicals uh that are on board and now coming into
the division during this month and we will continue to streamline processes where we are able
to and if possible to speed up some of our work so um if i can just um really sort of assess that
we are in the live environment we are operating for real you need to come to grips with regulatory
requirements and how to deliver that and as matt said today is very much geared towards
trying to give you more certainty and answer any questions that you
have on how to do that and also if there are things that we haven't yet addressed
to almost put those on the to-do list where we are able to do to see how we can further improve it
just at high level i talked about today's not the forum for for discussions about some of the bigger
strategic issues but myself matt penrose and others you know we are engaged with the industry
there are discussions at the highest level with government i was on a call very recently
with the secretary of state for bays ministers from dwp um and defra and a number of senior
industry representatives uh michael gove the chancellor of duchy lancaster also joined that
setting out some of the immediate challenges but also those facing the chemical sector in
the longer term so please rest assured that all of that information is being fed into government
to see what longer-term solutions are and very much at a personal level i want to see where
hsc can help you meet in both your regulatory requirements but most importantly running your
businesses running your organizations to higher levels of environmental and protection standards
but clearly being productive profitable businesses and anything that i can do as director to assist
in that i will be striving to do so and a final remark uh i'd like you to remember that hsc does
have a long history and a good track record of our approach to regulation we are a proportionate
regulator we do take pragmatic approaches to changes of regulation and we very much want to
work help and support business particularly those that are trying their best to comply
and need help and i really want you to have that confidence in us going forward and i'm
sure the environment agencies that we will be doing our job in in the way that is expected
by society and government but working with you all to achieve what we need to achieve