Environmental Audit Committee — Oral Evidence (HC 852)
1/33Welcome back, everybody, to the second panel in today’s inquiry into PFAS, the final session. I am delighted to say that we have joining us Minister Emma Hardy and Mr Casale from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The questions we ask will all be directed to you, Minister, but obviously if you feel that something would be best passed on to your colleague, we will leave you to decide on that. I will start by thanking you and your officials for the timely publication of the PFAS plan yesterday and for providing a draft version of your thoughts to the Committee to help inform our preparation. We announced our review into PFAS in April of last year and were delighted to hear that the Government were producing their own response to this important issue. We very much welcome the constructive dialogue with this Committee and the support for our work that you and your Department have provided, and the way in which we have worked together on the timing of this meeting and the plan. That is very much appreciated. However, it will not have escaped your attention that the response to the document has been, at best, lukewarm. A Guardian report quoted Chloe Alexander, the chemicals policy lead at Wildlife and Countryside Link, describing it as a “crushingly disappointing framework that ducks the hard decisions”. It also quoted Shubhi Sharma, a scientific researcher at Chem Trust, saying that “action has been deferred to an indefinite date in the future”. Were you surprised that the reaction to the action plan has been so negative? Can you see why experts in the field were expecting more?
Thank you so much for having me today and for also raising the problems we have around PFAS as an issue. I look forward to working in collaboration with your Committee. When it comes to the plan, I am very proud of it. I am obviously not here to speak for the previous Government’s action or inaction, but I will talk for mine. This has never been done before. It has never been done in Government before to take a cross-Government, collaborative approach to looking at how we deal with sources, pathways and exposures. That is exactly what this PFAS plan is intended to do. I am not going to sit here and say that we have perfected it first time, and I welcome the engagement with environmental groups, yourselves and with others. This is the first time we have ever done something like this and, to be honest with you, Chair, the first time you ever try to do anything, you are going to get some criticism from people saying you should have done it in a different way. I am willing to take that on, listen to it, learn and understand by saying, “Okay, I am hearing some of the points. In which ways would you want to see more work and where would you want to see more improvement?” I have to say that as a Labour Government, taking this issue seriously, looking for the first time at developing something that is cross-Government, I am pleased that we have done it. This is a foundation and it will build. Where there are areas where we need to develop in it, we will. Where there are areas where we think we have it right first time, we will crack on with it. That is how I see this. As the phrase goes, “Perfect is the enemy of the good.” I wanted to get something out and demonstrate this Government’s commitment and seriousness on this issue, and that is what we have done.
You talk about the fact that this is the first time that the UK Government have produced a plan on this, but we were not landing on the moon. There are other nations across Europe that have maybe been ahead of us over previous years, so it was not like the steps that might be considered were entirely unknown and have not been trialled elsewhere. When launching the plan, you said that PFAS posed “a long-term challenge for not only our health, but that of the nation’s vital ecosystems”, and that Government would “act decisively to reduce their harmful effects”. However, my sense on initial reading is that, as some of the criticisms say, this is primarily a plan to consult on whether to have a plan. It falls a long way short of the co-ordinated action that the EU is taking collectively or the further steps that have been taken in countries like France or Denmark. Many of the recommendations were to consider action or to consult on action. Obviously, consulting or improving monitoring are important, but they cannot be described as decisive action, can they?
It is a good thing that we listen to experts under this Government. It is a good thing that we have research and information, that we take knowledge in, and we recognise that where there is expertise we should listen to it, learn from it and understand it. It is also good that, under this Government, we are having an EU reset at the moment. It is a good thing that we are developing a much closer relationship with the European Union. There are certain aspects, pesticides being one of them, that are in scope of the EU negotiations that are happening at the moment. When I came into this role and had a look at the system as it was in front of me, it was quite clear that in the system as it stands now—and I will talk about how we intend to change it—to restrict chemicals is a two to three-year process per one, because of the whole process you must go through to introduce that restriction. From leaving the EU, the previous Government initiated two restrictions, one looking at lead in ammunition and the other one looking at tattoo ink. They started that work in 2021 and never made a decision on it and have just left it. When we came in the first thing I wanted to look at is where the issues are that are waiting for a decision, which we did, and got rid of lead in ammunition straightaway. We initiated the consultation into firefighting foam. We did the work on tattoo inks as well. It is also about how we change the system. If we do not change the system, we are forever going to be behind the European Union. We are not rejoining the European Union and we are not here to talk about that. What we are talking about, as was illustrated before, is how we can look at the system that they have while maintaining our own control over what works for our country—how we can look at their system to move through these processes much more quickly. We know that what many industries want is that certainty and level playing field. They want to understand that when they are exporting or importing, the rules are going to be similar so we can speed this up. What I want to do—
If I can just stop you there, we want to get into some of the approach that you are taking to provide that certainty, but I wanted to ask you about the basis of the plan. The plan states that it was devised having regard to the environmental principles policy statement. That statement includes both a precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle. We already know many of the harms associated with many PFAS—this comes on to your point about stopping a couple and other ones cropping up—yet there is a lack of scientific certainty about the harms of every specific compound. We heard from some witnesses that a Government applying a precautionary principle would assume that all PFAS are problematic until they are proven otherwise or are derogated in special circumstances because of their essential use. The plan does not propose doing that. The polluter pays principle would entail the manufacturers of PFAS contributing towards remediating the harms from PFAS pollution, which are evidently costly. Again, your plan does not propose that, so can you explain how this plan applies the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle as laid out in that policy statement?
As it mentions in the plan as well, we are looking very carefully at other jurisdictions and how they do that. As I was trying to explain—I will try again—the system that we have at the moment is laborious, slow and takes an awfully long time to put any chemicals into restriction, so we need to change the system and that is what I want to do. The reason why that matters so much is that if we change the system we can quickly catch up with the European Union and look at adding more things on to the candidate list and the authorisation list by the end of this year and going into next year. It really matters the way that the system is at the moment. There are essential uses of PFAS. I hear what people are saying, that we should ban them all, but as was illustrated by the gentleman who spoke before me, you have the European Union saying, “Right, okay, we are going to ban them all,” and then saying, “Oh, we need that one; it is an essential one so we will have an indefinite transition period for that one and we will move that one.” We are doing it bottom up—grassroots up—and having a look where there is an essential use. I do want to stress the importance of the essential use. To give you an example, for protective clothing used by our armed forces and emergency services at the moment, there is evidence of PFAS there. There is not currently an alternative, and I am happy to talk about research and development and how you develop alternatives later. In medical devices such as catheters and implants, there is at the moment an essential use for PFAS. I want to be careful, especially when we think about use in the Ministry of Defence and use by our armed forces, and use in aerospace where we are seeing evidence of PFAS, that we are making the best choices for our country, and that is looking at where there is an essential use until there is an alternative. As I say, I can speak to research and development but until there is an alternative we do need to carry on using those. I think that is recognised by the EU in how it has said, “Yes, we will ban it all,” but then has an indefinite transition for this one and an indefinite transition for that one. It has approached it in a different way but I anticipate we will end up in a similar place.
You said a moment ago that you wanted to change the whole system that you inherited, and one way to change that system would be to start by saying, “We are banning, and then we will consider if there are particular reasons why a certain one should not be banned,” which is broadly the approach the EU has taken. Having said that you want to change the system and get away from that, you now seem to be making a virtue of starting from the bottom and banning one at a time as we go, which is what has been criticised. We heard evidence that new PFAS are coming on to the market all the time. We learned about regrettable substitution, where one PFAS is banned so they very marginally change the compound and now we have to go through the process of banning that. Are you changing the system or are you arguing for broadly carrying on with an approach that says, “Let’s only ban it once we’ve proved it’s really harmful”?
We are changing the system when it comes to UK REACH, absolutely. We are changing the way in which we identify and restrict the use of certain chemicals for UK REACH so we are changing that system. That will make it quicker and easier for us to add chemicals to the authorisation list or restriction list and we are doing that. What I am saying with PFAS is that we have taken an approach that is evidence led—that is scientifically led and expert led—and I think that is the right thing to do, to listen to experts in this field. We have taken an approach that looks and identifies where we do not want the unintended consequences of going forward and saying, “Yes, we are going to ban all these,” and then finding out this is going to impact our military. I do not want that to happen.
If you have a precautionary approach, it absolutely understands there will be some things that you are making exceptions for. You talk about the scientific evidence you have heard, but there are many scientific experts who are criticising this approach and they are saying precisely that if you try to ban things individually as you go, you will constantly find that the changes that the sector makes outpace you. Would the EU approach be understandable for all manufacturing? The products that they make in the UK would be exactly the same as they make in Europe. Is that not the area of least resistance?
Again, I probably have not explained it very well. We are not going to ban individual PFAS. There are different ways of grouping them. Perhaps Marc, with his scientific knowledge, could explain how the different ones are grouped, which might help illustrate it. We are not talking about an individual one because there are thousands of them. Marc, do you want to explain?
Definitely. The general approach is of seeing what decisions the EU has made and then drawing from them. As you have pointed out, Chair, the EU is in the process of making a decision in relation to a universal PFAS restriction. We think we are going to find out later this year what that will involve and then in the light of that, we can decide what we are doing here, obviously while retaining full control of that decision. We may well end up in the same position but we are too early to say that just yet. In relation to grouping, in the earlier panel there was reference to the Health and Safety Executive’s regulatory management option analysis and there was a very full analysis in the front of that around an approach to grouping of PFAS. I know that some people say, “Why don’t you take all PFAS as a complete group and apply a universal band of them without going into the details?” but in fact there are definitely differences within PFAS as a category. Even the OECD definition that we take—even the OECD—points to there being different groupings. The RMOA pointed out that there is a higher level distinction you can draw between polymeric and non-polymeric PFAS. In fact, there are about four or five pages at the front of the RMOA that go into the different groupings. What we want to do is to make sure that when we ban one particular chemical we do not have regrettable substitution with something that is similar to it. Given the different risks, which apply at the different stages, we take a life cycle approach, thinking first of all about production and then usage and then what happens at the waste end of the life cycle. Different risks apply at different stages of the life cycle for different PFAS and different PFAS groupings. We want to take an evidence and science-based approach that is drawn from the facts, which imply that one size does not fit all. Coming back to the first point, we will wait and see what the EU universal restriction ends up looking like and that will inform us.
Minister, a comprehensive restriction does not mean an immediate ban. As the Chair has pointed out, the EU model explicitly allows a time-limited derogation. On what you said about what industry wants, industry are quite happy at the moment, are they not, because they are getting away with not having to pay for the clean-up costs? They are getting to keep on modifying. It is whack-a-mole, is it not? We bat one down and they simply modify the compound and another one pops up. With this whole approach of wait and watch, PFAS are already in our blood, in our water, in our children’s bodies. The number of hotspots is already in the tens of thousands, and we know and we have said that that is going to increase. You have not yet I think persuaded anyone on this Committee that this is adopting a precautionary approach. Let me tackle what Mr Casale said about the new approach that you are adopting to REACH. That is on pages 15, 16 and 17 of the plan. What you talk about there is on page 15, “The UK REACH candidate list indicates publicly if a substance has properties of very high concern, sending an important signal to encourage consideration of substitution away from particularly hazardous substances.” The candidate list is not about banning, is it? When you talk about the candidate list in REACH, that indicates if a substance has those properties of high concern, but you are only sending, as you say, a “signal”. In the same paragraph you say, “we are currently considering the addition of further specific”—not class, not group—“PFAS substances to it.” Now, there is a problem there for two reasons. The candidate list is not the authorisation list that bans substances but a lower-tier list of raising the substances as being of high concern. The wording “specific” substances would suggest that the Government are not looking at group bans along the same lines as we have already discussed.
You are right. The candidate list is a list of chemicals that we have high concern about. This is where I differ from the previous Government. The previous Government were only looking to consider putting things on the candidate list if they were going to move it into the authorisation list, and what this has meant in effect, from when we left the European Union to the point we came into government, is that the EU added 42 on to the candidate list and the UK added zero. In my mind, I think the candidate list has an important role to play in its own right by saying and signalling to people that these are areas of concern. The reforms that we are looking at doing with UK REACH mean that we can catch up on looking at some of these chemicals that have been added by the EU by the end of next year. To the authorisation list, which of course is when you limit that to tough conditions, again since Brexit and under the previous Government, the EU added five and we added zero. That is why in July 2025, we committed to reviewing all the substances that have been added by the EU to the authorisation list since the UK exit. We are looking at consulting and recommending on three of those and calling for evidence on the remaining two. All the time the message that I hope that you hear from me is that I am determined that we are not going to be the dirty man of Europe under my watch, so where the EU has gone ahead and moved more quickly on some of these actions I am finding ways in which we can do exactly the same. On the restriction list, again the EU has added eight since exit and we have added zero. We have already started to take action on that and we have already started to look at restrictions. What I would like to be able to come back and talk to you about, if I was invited back again to discuss this next year, is how far we have got in making sure that we are catching up with the European Union on these different things. I do think, and I can say this as a politician, it is fairly disgraceful that we have been allowed to fall behind since EU exit up until this point and I am quite determined that will not continue.
On page 9 of your plan it says, “We expect to see progress through a combination of improved public understanding, industry-led and industry-owned initiatives (such as the Chemical Industry Association’s PFAS Information Exchange Forum), and transparent self-regulation.” So on the one hand you are putting the responsibility on the industry and you are signalling to them that these specific ones are now of high concern, and on the other hand you are putting the responsibility on the consumer. If you read the back of a shampoo bottle, how are you supposed to know that polyfluoroalkyl phosphate and polytetrafluoroethylene are forever chemicals that we should not put on our heads? It is putting this on to the consumer and signalling to the industry that these are of high concern while all the time saying to industry, “You keep on going and doing what you like until we tell you you cannot. We are telling you it is of concern and the responsibility is on you but the costs are on us.” If you look at what the EU has calculated in terms of their costs, the Environment Agency—and we heard it from Ms Parkes earlier—has already estimated the cost of cleaning up the problem sites at between £31 billion and £121 billion. The EU is saying that if it puts a ban on PFAS, the cost of our healthcare in Europe would fall by £39 billion a year. All the burden of this at the moment falls on the public. The risks are falling on the public. The health detriment is falling on the public. The costs are falling on the public. I cannot for the life of me understand why industry is being given a free pass, exactly as the Chair says, and there is no polluter pays principle and there is no precautionary principle being applied.
I am sorry; I disagree with you. I think the candidate list—
What element of that do you disagree with, Minister? The costs?
I am happy to explain.
The costs have been published.
Let her answer the question.
Thank you, Chair. Putting chemicals on the candidate list is not a mere signal to the industry. Putting chemicals on the candidate list is more than a mere signal that we might do something about it.
That is what you said it is. You said it was a signal. It is there in the report.
It designates a substance of very high concern so I will push back gently on that. When it comes to EA funding, again I do want to reiterate to the Committee that it is this Government that increased funding to the EA by £188 million this year after the previous Government slashed it dramatically down to its lowest level ever after the election in 2010, only to allow it to recover in the early 2020s, so it is this Government that are putting money into the Environment Agency to make sure it has the money to fulfil its function. I know for a fact you are not saying that, Barry, but I won’t listen to people criticise what this Government are doing when it comes to funding the Environment Agency. On the polluter pays, we absolutely adhere to polluter pays. That is a cornerstone of what we have done and a cornerstone of what I personally have done when it comes to the water industry. You can use part 2 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which means that those responsible for historical land contamination must pay for the remediation. Where it is unable to find it because it is a legacy contamination and therefore it is incredibly difficult, there is an £80 million fund that is available for local government to use. You are right to feel angry that it should not land on the public to pay for this and I share that anger with you because I think that is right. Where we can identify where this has come from, of course we go after the polluter. We are doing it in water and we will do it in this area. Where we cannot, we have had to set up a separate fund for it, but the plan is also looking at dealing with the sources. It is looking at where we can research alternatives, where we can move elsewhere, what is happening in other jurisdictions, and what action we are taking. I am not going to sit here and defend, nor do I want to, what the previous Government did or did not do, but what I can say is, in the 18 months since I have come in, these are all the actions I have take: this is how I want to catch up with the European Union, this is the money we are putting into the Environment Agency, and these are the changes that I want to see happen. In some cases industry is doing a good job. The cosmetics industry is doing a really good job in leading the way on this. They are one of the best industries that are showing the way on doing this and that is great. Where we have industry working well, let’s celebrate it. Where we have people not behaving the way we want, let them suffer the consequences through the polluter pays. I feel that is a fair way of doing it.
We will maybe come back to some of that. Sammy Wilson.
Minister, you have already maybe touched on some of the answers to the first question I wanted to ask, but the plan states that UK REACH will be reformed by 2028 to be “more aligned with our closest trading partners” and that the UK will use trusted jurisdiction decisions as starting points. How exactly will those commitments work in a practical way?
Do you want to explain all this in detail, Marc?
Yes. If I explain where we are with the REACH restrictions process, obviously these are where we have banned substances. We have just been speaking about the universal REACH restriction that was in the pipeline. Currently, we have inherited the same processes that apply to EU REACH. The agency has just explained this as well, but what it means is that for the first 12 months after DEFRA commissions HSE to look into doing a UK REACH restriction, there is an annex 15 dossier stage whereby HSE has to undertake lots of assessments and pull together a proposal based on the scientific facts. Under the regulations, that then has to be subject to a six-month consultation period. Following that six months, there is another three-month period where HSE looks into the socioeconomic impacts of what might be its future proposal. That then must be subject to a further two months of consultation. Following that HSE then produces its proposal, which is then sent to the Minister here. Assuming there are delays, that is already two years, then we have to consider that proposal. A decision has to be made under the regulations within three months and then, assuming that decision is made within three months, we need to have an affirmative resolution—secondary legislation—to put that on the books. After that you then have a transition period for the sector normally. If you add this all up you are looking at about four or five years from the very beginning to the very end. If we look at what other countries are doing—for example, Switzerland—they do not do all that. They look at what the EU has done and what restrictions the EU has made and they do an initial consultation speaking to industry and stakeholders. After that they retain the choice to adopt that decision or change it, but normally they just adopt it. That is much quicker and basically it gets to the same outcome very quickly compared with where we are now. That is just one other model that we have been pointed towards by NGOs and by industry as something that they find quite attractive. As I say, at the moment we are stuck with this current process that was brought over as part of the whole Brexit process and it just means that we cannot move quickly at all. When you add delays—and, as the Minister said, with the tattoo inks and the lead in ammunition restrictions they were initiated in April 2021 but no decision had been made until last year, 2025—that is already a very long time just before the decision has been made and now we must legislate and find parliamentary time to do an affirmative resolution of an SI. That is just the restrictions process. Beyond restrictions that is where we have the most concerning catch-up to do, because we have these eight decisions that currently the EU has made that we have not yet made. There are seven more EU restriction decisions in the pipeline that the EU is considering so that is an awful lot and restrictions are the most powerful of these REACH measures. On the candidate list and on the authorisation list, as the Minister has said, there is a big backlog but we are planning to catch up with basically 90% of that backlog by next April, so by the end of the next financial year. We ought to be able to do almost all that pretty quickly and make up for that, but the restrictions are where we are focusing and that is where we need to make the changes. When we have done that we should be able to nail all these restrictions. Again, we will also see what the EU universal restriction looks like and whether it is something that we think is a good thing to do here. It is hard to tell right now because, as you said, the EU started top down and it is whittling it away. If we had done bottom up, we may have ended up in the same position, but we will see what it looks like. I do not want to form a view right now about it. When the new reforms are in place—the environmental improvement plan says that they will be in place by the end of December 2028 and realistically they might be done before then—then we can do this catch-up. Then I think we will be in a much stronger position. As we have heard, we will have the regulations in place that will force the industry to focus on alternatives to PFAS. The vision set out in the PFAS plan is around moving towards a safer environment—safer for people and for the environment—but also an environment where the sector is moving towards alternatives. When we have this catch-up with the new model, we will be bang on with it.
The Minister has said that we are not rejoining the EU. I think earlier on she made that comment, but you are saying there is a choice here between either going through the long, complicated process that you described in the first part of your answer or starting to take a lot of the EU regulations, decisions and so on and incorporate them into our plan for the reform of REACH. Do you see that there is a political issue there, that on one hand some people will be unhappy that we are falling into the decisions made by the EU and not going through our own processes?
I think in terms of the way forward, industry finds it appealing because if we think about the sector as part of the context, in 2024, we had £29 billion of exports from our sector of which 62% went to the EU and then £36 billion of imports of which 67% were from the EU. Our sector is completely integrated with the EU sector—with very complex supply chains that are really interwoven. This current divergence has been bad for the sector. In fact, in the latest Chemical Business Association survey that came out only last week, one of the challenges that it pointed towards, one of its top three challenges, was around increasing regulatory divergence and accelerating what it says is a loss of competitiveness. For the sector, it does not want to see the divergence that we have had. If we think about other stakeholders, about the environment and about people, NGOs also are very keen for us to see our standards rising. At the moment, because we have fewer restrictions, protections for people and for the environment are not quite as high as in the EU. This current system I have just set out is very expensive to operate. It costs a lot of money. If we move to a more efficient system that is slicker there will be savings to the public purse as well. There is a lot of interest in moving in that way forward. Of course, let’s not forget that if we move closer to the EU, then it will be a lot nicer for GB and Northern Ireland, too.
In an earlier answer the Minister did say that where it was in the interests of the UK, the Government would consider divergence and, indeed, mentioned a couple of industries—pharmaceuticals and aerospace, I think. What criteria would be used for deciding whether we were going to diverge from the EU on these issues?
It would be case by case consideration. We would have to decide how the process would work, but all Government decisions and all decisions would remain under the Government’s control. All decisions that we make are subject to consultation. That is just the way it is under the better regulation framework. Going into how it would work case by case, we would have to consult on it and then we would go through much less process at the outcome. If we look at the current restrictions that are in place, we would have to consider if there was anything in those decisions that we think we would want to diverge from when we apply them in the UK. The control would always be held by us.
Yes, but what would the criteria be simply on the outcome of the consultation? Would it be what industry said or what came back from whatever source of information you used? Surely there would be a criterion that you would apply. What factors would be included in that criterion?
Those precise factors would be set out in the proposals that we are going to set out for consultation in relation to how the new model is going to work. I pointed out what the Swiss model looks like. That is a model that has been put to us by industry and NGOs as an example. What we are going to do is to set out what we think our model is going to be, and then we will consult on that. That is then going to set out how it will work in terms of drawing from EU decisions and then when we might diverge and how we might exercise our control. That will then set out the detail of what those criteria might be. Before we get there we want to do a lot of pre-consultation activity with key stakeholders, including industry, NGOs and others, in relation to what those proposals should be. We are not at a stage right now to say, “Here’s exactly how it’s going to work.” That has to be worked up and then put to proper consultation. As part of that, it will always be case by case because all Government decisions we make—regulatory decisions—are subject to consultation to make sure that we have understood the impacts on business and on others.
I suppose the Committee would want to know what weight would be given, for example, to the environmental implications of diverging and not putting restrictions on as opposed to trade, employment or whatever. That was really what I was trying to get at. What would be the main criteria that would be applied when deciding or making a decision about divergence?
As Marc illustrated, we will consult on exactly how that divergence model is going to work. Of course, to reassure the Committee, the environmental factor is hugely important. I am yet to see—of all the many, many people I have spoken to who supported Brexit—anybody who thinks the reason to leave the European Union was so we could have lower standards in chemical contamination. I feel that it is an important factor. As Marc said, the exact system and how it is going to work is something that we want to be talking to all stakeholders about. Of course, environmental groups are a hugely important stakeholder as well as industry.
Have you considered the trade implications—although that is probably not your Department—of divergence? Already, for example, Northern Ireland faces a situation where it has to abide by EU REACH regulations. That already applies to fire extinguishers and so on. There will be new regulations that will apply from April of this year, and then other PFAS regulations from 2028. What are the implications of divergence? We understand the implications of divergence in Northern Ireland. Already there is fear that consumers will be hit with this because, for example, if packaging was not included, goods coming from GB to Northern Ireland would be affected in Northern Ireland. The aerospace and pharmaceuticals industries are very prominent in Northern Ireland. What trade implications have you identified that could arise from divergence and how do you intend to deal with that?
At the moment we have a system where there is divergence because the previous Government after Brexit set their own system. As Marc explained and illustrated, this has meant that as the EU has added chemicals to the candidate list, the authorisation list, the restriction list, there has been divergence over time. We have a system at the moment where there is divergence and you are quite right that the cost of doing that—of Brexit and the deal that they negotiated—will have impacted business because there is divergence. What we are saying is that we want to move towards maintaining control but looking carefully at what the European Union is doing, making sure we are catching up around chemicals that are of concern. Under our model we are reducing divergence, which is obviously much better for Northern Ireland because that is within the EU’s regulation. That should help if you have a similar system working in England, Scotland and Wales as you have in Northern Ireland. That should really help.
Minister, new PFAS are continually being developed and I do not think the public are fully aware of the risks. How do the Government intend to handle the regulation and risk assessment of such a large class of chemicals?
We have talked about our new approach—how we want to add chemicals to the list and how we want to catch up—but one of the other things we want to do is look at research and development of alternatives. I think that is important because at the moment there is a list of essential use and I would say most people, if not everyone, would agree that where there is that essential use, there is not an alternative. One of the things we need to do, and this is what the PFAS plan was looking at, is sources and how we can create alternative sources, bearing in mind, as the Chair illustrated, you do not want to say, “Don’t use this PFAS” and then they go and use another one. I think one of the things we want to do is about working with UKRI, and one of them is funding research projects. Some of those projects have been industry led, which we commend the industry for; some of those can be led through Government funding to make sure that we are reducing sources and reducing the number of ones out there. In terms of regulating them, and I think Marc was trying to explain this earlier, there are different ways of grouping PFAS. Depending on the different groups you put them into, there are different ways of regulating them. I don’t know if you want to add anything, Marc.
We always aim to take a risk-based approach. We can look at the different groupings and then we can look at what might be an essential use; there was discussion earlier around essential uses where there is not an obvious alternative. Then we can see what risks of harm are generated by the substance in question and what the implications and the impacts would be of restricting that particular substance. That is our overall general approach, to do that in a science-based way that is also proportionate, targeted and collaborative in terms of bringing in input from the sector and from NGOs. In terms of innovation, it is worth mentioning that if you look at the UK Research and Innovation website, it currently lists 15 projects that are wholly or partly focused on innovation and understanding, addressing PFAS and moving away to alternatives. There is also other work involving other research councils, too, which is focusing on this field. It was mentioned in the earlier session that the Chemical Industries Association has set up a platform for different sectors to discuss among themselves in a peer challenge-type way what they are doing about moving towards alternative substances. Although regulation obviously plays a key role, those in the sector are sharing best practice and challenging each other in a way that is leading towards improvement. I think that is also a valuable part of the overall picture.
Are you suggesting that the Government are planning to introduce a framework to distinguish between essential use or non-essential use? Are you looking to introduce a framework?
Not a framework as such. Obviously, we are very aware of what some of the essential uses are. We have heard some examples of medical devices, things such as catheters, implants and surgical equipment. It is very hard to find alternatives that do not have adverse impacts for protective clothing, including for the armed forces, as well as some industrial applications, membranes and tubing, and aerospace applications. There are also environmental trade‑offs, which are worth thinking about. When we think about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming and the Montreal protocol, we know that we have hydrofluorocarbons at the moment and there is a commitment to reduce the amount of HFCs out there by 85% by 2036. It turns out that the only viable alternatives to them are hydrofluoroolefins, or HFOs. They are much better from a global warming perspective but they do break down into these small arrowhead PFAS substances if we are not careful, including trifluoroacetic acid or TFAs, which have been subject to a bit of interest recently. Again, we have a trade-off there. We are trying to tackle global warming, and the way of doing so is to shift away from these hydrofluorocarbons, but the alternative also has a risk of creating a bit of PFAS. It is not always as simple as saying we have to ban it all. That is a particular example where there is an environmental trade-off that we need to be thinking about very carefully.
How will newly developed PFAS be assessed and regulated swiftly to avoid future regulatory gaps? Now we are waiting for four or five years and identifying new PFAS all the time. How will you assess the regulations swiftly to avoid any delays?
That is the reforms that we were talking about and how we look at REACH. As Marc pointed out as well, we will be looking carefully at what is happening with the EU and where they get to when it comes to PFAS restrictions and what that regime actually ends up looking like. This comes down to fundamentally changing the system because we have the system, as Marc explained, where it takes about five years to do something. I suppose the short answer is that we are going to change the system to enable us to act more quickly.
I would just like to pick up that point about timelines, if that is okay, because I know that my farmers have questions around pesticides. It is great that we are starting to export and import more, isn’t it, to our European partner countries? However, where there is a gap in that timetable around pesticide regulation, we find that the UK has that time lag with the EU. My farmers would say that they have used a pesticide that is allowed and it is in the ground, but then they are not allowed to sell that product to the EU because it has not yet been approved because of that time lag. What can we do to help farmers who feel caught in that timeline? Are there any plans around some convergence or support?
Yes, that is a really important issue. Pesticides sit outside of what we are talking about today, but that issue is part of the EU reset negotiations and the SPS agreement. That is live at the moment and I am not personally involved in those negotiations so I don’t know how much of an update I can give you, other than it is part of live negotiations. We as DEFRA absolutely hear the point—we really do hear the point that farmers are making about this—and we fully understand their particular concerns on this issue.
Minister, before I go into my more detailed questions, I want to pick up on a trend in the discussion so far. You have made your personal commitment to this issue very clear. You spoke about not wanting our nation to be the dirty man of Europe. In a lot of the discussion we have been talking about catching up with Europe, but from a political perspective, do we not want to surpass them?
Aha—and we are in some areas. I am pleased you asked me that question because then I get to tell you about drinking water. Yes, in some areas we are. On drinking water, we have some of the best drinking water in the whole world. Its standards are incredibly high. The Drinking Water Inspectorate is incredible. It is one of the most comprehensive PFAS monitoring programmes globally with the strongest protections in the world. It has higher standards than you find in the EU and in the US. Yes, I think that is a gold star—drinking water—when it comes to showing that. In some areas we need to play catch up because of the system we inherited, which frankly, in my opinion, does not work, but when it comes to drinking water, we can hold our heads up and say that we are one of the best.
Okay. Interestingly, and I promise this was not choreographed, the remainder of my questions are about drinking water.
You know what I am going to say now.
The PFAS plan commits to consulting on making PFAS limits in drinking water statutory in 2026. For the sake of the record, can you confirm what estimates your Department has of the potential cost of ensuring those limits would be met?
The really good thing is that because the Drinking Water Inspectorate is so good, it puts in non-statutory limits already. When I came into Government I said, “That is brilliant. You have non-statutory limits. I like it and I want to make them statutory,” and that is exactly what we are going to do. Just to reassure you, since the inspectorate put in those non-statutory limits at the moment, where they have to monitor 48 individual PFAS and comply with a value guideline of 0.1 micrograms per litre, they have shown until the end of 2024 that no drinking water supplies in England and Wales exceeded this level. So as it stands at the moment, our drinking water is compliant with it while it is non-statutory. You might say, “Why are you making it statutory then?” but I still think it is important to have it on a statutory basis as well. However, it is already compliant with the non-statutory guidance.
Okay. On that basis, then, you would not expect there to be substantial costs to be borne at any point in the pipeline around water treatment plans to upgrade them to be in line with those statutory limits.
As I say, with drinking water, they are currently already meeting their standards while the limit is non-statutory, so then when you make it statutory, no, I would not on drinking water.
Okay. You have answered all my questions very clearly and simply. Back to you, Chair.
As we know, one of the big problems with PFAS is that even if all production ceased tomorrow morning, which is not what you are proposing, PFAS will continue to persist in the environment. As Barry said earlier, the Environment Agency has estimated that the cost of clean-up of only the most problem sites alone is between £31 billion and £121 billion, which is an astonishing sum. Liz Parkes from the Environment Agency acknowledged in her evidence earlier this afternoon that how to fund the removal of that so-called legacy PFAS is a challenge. I am worried that it is unclear at the moment who will bear the cost of cleaning up existing PFAS pollution, and I am worried on two counts. On the one hand, I am worried that the taxpayer will end up picking up the bill when it is not the public’s fault. On the other hand, I am worried that generally when there is no funding for something it does not happen. My first question is: how do the Government intend to fund remediation of this legacy PFAS, as specific as you can be about it?
As you have quite rightly pointed out, we are not ending the entire PFAS production tomorrow because, as pointed out, that would have a huge impact on the essential uses for which it is being used today. I don’t imagine you are advocating for that either. In terms of how we are going to pay for it, the polluter pays principle is a really important principle from the Environment Act 2021. Under part 2 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 those responsible for historical land contamination are liable to pay for remediation. Where the Environment Agency, through its permitting regime, can identify the pollution source, those people will be made to pay for remediation. However, you are quite right to highlight where you have legacy contamination and you cannot accurately identify the source from which it has come, which is an important issue. That is where we are using the land remediation pathfinder scheme, which covers more than just PFAS. There is an £80 million fund there as well. Fundamentally, if we want to end the continual pollution of PFAS, we do need to deal with the source. That means looking at where we can develop alternatives and looking at adding in those restrictions. That is all those things I have covered so far around how you speed up the restrictions and how you speed up adding chemicals on to the candidate list. There are different ways to tackle this. Dealing with the source is one of them, and dealing with the legacy contamination. As I say, if you can identify who has done it, the polluter pays. If you cannot identify who has done it because it is just impossible to, there is a small fund available—well, £80 million.
Yes, “small” is the word in that sentence that worries me, obviously. There is a big difference between £80 million and the numbers in the billions that my colleague Barry shared earlier. What are the sums that were done to produce that £80 million figure? How far do you think that is going to go?
I think that is genuinely impossible to answer at the moment, which is why the research that is highlighted in the plan is so important. At the moment we know that there is a big problem. We know that we are going to have to deal with it, but it is not accurate enough at this stage for me to be able to say to you, “It is going to cost this much and it is in these locations,” because we do not have that information. That is why having that research and monitoring is really important. What will probably end up having to happen is that over the next few years, as our intelligence increases, and as our understanding, research, monitoring and knowledge about where this is increases, we will have to look more at what we can do on legacy. It is a bit difficult for me to say at the moment what my estimate is of cost and therefore how I got to this figure because at the moment we simply do not have enough information out there. It is an estimate. We do not actually have the knowledge, which is why—and it has been pointed out as a negative but I would argue it is a positive—having an awful lot of research and monitoring in the plan matters so much.
There is also a clear distinction between legacy contamination, where the business, let’s say, that was responsible no longer exists, versus ongoing contamination and the cost of clean-up might be high. Where you have ongoing sites that are currently active, you do have the Environment Agency’s site permitting regime where it engages with those sites. The Environment Agency knows where the higher priority sites are through all its monitoring, and it is engaging with site owners in relation to what is happening at those sites and dealing with any potential contamination. I think the issue you are focusing on is more around whether we have any particular sites where you cannot pin it on anybody and then how do you deal with those costs. We have spoken about costs falling to the taxpayer, but obviously business also pays tax so they would cover that to some extent, too.
Yes. I understand that you are saying that more research needs to be done. I am trying to get a rough sense of how much of the clean-up of legacy PFAS will be attributable to a particular source and how much of cannot—roughly, if you can give a rough sense, or perhaps you cannot even do that at this stage.
Not at this stage. That is why having that monitoring and research matters so much, so we can fully understand the extent of the problem. That is why it is important.
Okay. Moving on slightly to my final question, you said in your first answer to me, I think, that you want to hopefully limit the production of PFAS in the first place. In the Government’s PFAS plan, there is an indication that you want to incentivise or encourage the development of PFAS alternatives. Can you be a bit more specific about how the Government intend to do that incentivisation?
Yes. It is important that we look at how we move away from PFAS and look at alternatives, but with the proviso that we do not then use a similar chemical that is just as bad. I just put that caution out there. One thing is clear regulation and using regulation as a tool. Again, that goes back to what I have been talking about around UK REACH and how we use that. Regulation obviously provides a clear incentive. I would strongly argue that putting something on to the candidate list is a strong incentive for businesses to move away from using that chemical. I also think that industry has done some work on this. The cosmetics industry is a good example of a one that has done this. We do quite a few chemical industry roundtables where we talk to them about innovation and have those discussions with them. There is also looking at how we create demand for PFAS-free alternatives. One of the ways in which we can create demand for PFAS-free alternatives is around public procurement. For example, we are looking at guidance for the purchase of textiles by Government and looking at the buying standards so that the Government’s role in public procurement is creating demand for PFAS-free by saying, “With these certain textiles we will be looking for PFAS free.” There are different ways of trying to achieve this regulation through supporting industry. Research through UKRI is another way of doing it, and through looking at our role in public procurement. I think all these are ways in which we incentivise. I have to say that there is a positive growth story from this. We think that the PFAS-free market in the EU is expected to reach around £12 billion by 2040. We see this as an area where the UK can show leadership in innovation, because this is a market that is only going to grow. One of the other things that we have noticed, which again is outside Government control but I see it as a positive, is that investors in the financial sector are increasingly looking at the use of PFAS as a potential future liability. There is pressure coming from investors who are looking at companies and thinking, “This could be a future liability if you continue to use this PFAS.” It feels like the tide is turning towards how we move away from the use of some of these chemicals, which is all positive. My only caution is I just want to ensure that we move to a safe alternative.
We have some further questions about remediation if that is okay. As part of this inquiry, we visited a site that has been affected by PFAS. Frankly, I do not know how that business has survived given the money that it has had to put into mitigating the effect of a product that it legitimately made because it had a public good in terms of putting out fire very effectively. Are there any conversations between your Department and DBT to help it understand how this affects businesses that were essentially doing the right thing but now have this huge clean-up bill?
We are doing a roundtable soon, actually, with DBT. It is slightly different. That is looking more at consumer products and trying to get ahead of the problem so we prevent it happening in the first place.
What about specifically in terms of remediation for highly contaminated sites, rather than looking ahead to avoiding it happening again?
We do work closely with DBT on all chemicals sector matters. That includes sharing what is happening with the remediation cases, other developments in the sector relating to sector resilience and future regulation, and other factors that are important to the sector’s competitiveness, such as energy prices. We do work very closely indeed with that Department.
Does that include sharing best practice? When we went to that site, they had invested a huge amount of money in, I think, an Australian piece of equipment to remediate the ground—the surface water. This gave us the impression that it was really the manufacturers of that equipment that were leading the charge in that space. How effective are Government at sharing information across the sector about steps that contaminated sites can take to do their remediation?
There is definitely innovation in how we deal with PFAS and what we can do to destroy it, as was highlighted by the Environment Agency earlier. At the moment, the way to destroy it is 1,100°C incineration. However, there are other innovative ways coming on, but obviously we want to carefully monitor them to ensure that they are being effective. I went to visit a site myself in Immingham on Monday to look at what they are doing there. It is really interesting because they are taking the carbon and they are putting something on it—that is a chemical term—and then that is used to filter and hold the PFAS. They then destroy the PFAS from it afterwards. There is some really interesting innovation coming in this space, but as I am sure you and the rest of the Committee would support, we have to be cautious about this. We have to make sure that everything that we get through is working as effectively as we want. That is not to say it is not effective, but it is important that we do this carefully.
Will national standards be introduced for PFAS destruction?
The EA issues—I do not know if it is guidance or if it is statutory guidance on what is the best way to destroy it. At the moment what it has said is that the best way to destroy it is 1,100°C incineration. However, it is constantly looking at that. As I say, this could be a growth story. This could be where there is innovation and where there are exciting things happening, which I am in full support of. We might be coming to a different answer in a few months’ time as different things are tried and different innovations happen.
On incineration, we know there are not very many sites in the country that can undertake that work and the price has got more and more expensive. I think it is £16 to get rid of six litres of fire foam. Is there any market oversight function that Government could lean on to stop manufacturers trying to do the right thing being ripped off?
Yes, you are right in that there are only two hazardous waste incinerators permitted to accept PFAS. At the moment we judge that there is sufficient capacity to meet needs, but as we take more action on this, as we discover more and therefore want to destroy more, we anticipate there will be greater demand. That is why I think it is important that we look at other innovations and other things that are coming through and other technology that is in the pipeline. You are right to say that at the moment there are just two, but I would also say that I know where we have these waste incinerators they are not always that popular in the local area. I am not sure that advocating for many more would be popular.
On innovation, would you be able to say a bit about what the Government are doing to fund the expansion of UK lab and incineration capacity to support the monitoring of the whole PFAS situation but also its destruction?
Yes. On monitoring we do exceptionally well. Do you want to explain about the monitoring, Marc?
Yes. A lot of the monitoring that is taking place, at the moment led by the Environment Agency, relates to water but it is increasingly focusing on land and on mammals. A lot of the water monitoring focuses on coastal and estuary areas too, rather than just rivers. Part of the monitoring also involves collecting data from industry. For example, there is a UK pollutant release and transfer register and the PFAS plan refers to that being expanded to cover more air emissions and that information coming from industry. We have also mentioned that industry plays quite an important role on the water side, again on the chemical investigations programme. In all these areas there is a lot going on to understand where we are with PFAS, and on monitoring we are, indeed, in a very strong position.
Does that include funding cutting edge lab research? I know a lot of this monitoring is the sector just doing it by itself and reporting its information to Government or to the Government’s agencies.
A lot of our research programme does focus on this monitoring side. It also relates to setting thresholds and standards. I think it may have been mentioned by the previous panel that the Environment Agency has just published a report in relation to water and setting four thresholds for water. Again, that can be a precursor to setting future environmental quality standards. That came out, I think, only a week or so ago and, again, that was following some research investment. That is an important step forward.
I want to tease out this £80 million remediation cost figure that you spoke about. I am sure, Mr Casale, you will know that the European Commission has published a report in which it says that Europe is on track to pay at least €440 billion to deal with the pollution impacts from PFAS. It said that the cost could actually soar to nearly €2 trillion under a more ambitious clean-up regime. It says that even if it implemented a full ban now, Europe would still be left with costs of €330 billion by 2050. That is the Commission’s own published report. I wonder what estimates your Department has provided to the Treasury of the potential costs of this. In Europe certainly, the policy officer for chemicals in the European Environmental Bureau, Noémie Jegou, has said that the EU must turn off the tap now through an ambitious restriction of PFAS present in consumer products and used in industrial processes because these costs are “staggering”. I just wonder what the cross-Government recognition is of the potential staggering costs to the UK from this.
We have covered this a bit already, but it does come back down to who is liable for meeting those costs. Is it current businesses or not? Then it comes back to a case by case consideration of what actually—
But for tracking back what already exists, the Minister has already told us that once they are mixed together, and particularly once they become degraded, it is almost impossible to identify the source. Given that it was legal at the time for people to use these products, one assumes that you would not be chasing them retrospectively to pay for it. Even if you did, you know as well as do I what would happen, and that is that the companies would go into liquidation and reform in another way.
Yes. The approach we take is where there is a particular high-risk site, that is subject to consideration and investigation under the legislation we have referred to. In the light of that, if remediation is needed, and if a company is liable for that, they pay for it. If not, it falls to the local authority that is responsible for contaminated land. If the local authority cannot cover it, we have other support. We have mentioned the particular scheme that exists. That is the—
Yes, but that was not my question. I understand that what you are telling me is that the expectation that we all have is that ultimately this will fall back on the taxpayer in one way or another. My question to you was: how do you justify the £80 million figure that you and the Minister quoted and what estimates have you given to Treasury of the realistic—what Europe called “staggering”—bill that may accrue?
As I mentioned earlier, this is why research and monitoring matter, because you cannot give an accurate estimate to Treasury if you do not have the information you need. This is why in the plan research is mentioned so often and why I am so pleased it is, because it needs to be there. If I want to go to Treasury and say to the Chancellor, “Okay, we need some money,” but they said, “How have you got to that figure?” and I said, “We guessed it because Europe had a similar figure”, they would laugh me out the door. Whereas we actually want to be able to go and say, “This is all the information we have. This is all the research we have done. This is the monitoring we have done. This is our calculation around legacy,” and come up with something that is more mature than making a judgment based on another jurisdiction.
I have a supplementary question. Can I first of all check, Marc, that I have understood correctly? On that £31 billion to £121 billion range from the Environment Agency, you were talking about the EU just then but that number was the UK. Is that right?
That was the UK.
Okay. In that case, I could not do the mental maths when I was asking you my question earlier, but I have since got the calculator out and worked out what £80 million is as a percentage of £31 billion. When I asked you earlier if you had a rough idea of what proportion of the PFAS already in the environment would be traceable to source, understandably you could not give a number at the moment, but the Government have set aside an £80 million fund. If we compare that with the lowest end of the Environment Agency’s estimate of how much it will cost to clean up, the difference between those numbers implies that it will be possible to identify the source and somebody who can still be chargeable—a company that still exists—in 99.7% of cases. To me, that seems unrealistic, given what we have said about the way it breaks down. Do you share my sense that that is an unrealistic number?
I hate to repeat myself, but I think this is why we need to do the research and get the evidence to find out what the accurate situation is. At the moment we are dealing with estimates and projections. We are not dealing with facts. Until we have that evidence, we cannot have an accurate idea about what the cost would be.
So where did the £80 million come from?
The £80 million would have come from a view about what was needed to support those cases where local authorities felt that they themselves were liable or had to pick up some liabilities and could not cover that. As with all Government schemes, no doubt that will be subject to review and consideration. If it is found that actually that scheme needs to provide for a greater amount of funding, that will be considered in due course. If it is found that that amount of funding did the job in the circumstances, we will see. We start off with a scheme, we review it, we monitor it, and then the conclusions are drawn. Then it feeds back into the public spending cycle that we have.
I just want to ask a quick question. I should probably declare an interest in that I used to be a research scientist. What cross-departmental discussions have you had about funding biomedical, biochemical and public health research into the health impacts not only at a cellular level but at population levels, as well as the molecular level of the impact of PFAS on those different issues?
On research in general, our researchers engage with others across Government. They are part of a wider—
Sorry, I want to know how the Department is influencing other Departments to fund this area—to put money up front to fund the biochemical, biomedical and public health research that we need.
We do that as part of ongoing engagement with other Departments, as part of the Government-wide science net. Basically, we link up with UKHSA—it has a lead interest in this space—so that our scientists and their scientists will engage with each other to agree what they think the research priorities should be. That is the general approach.
Each Department has a chief scientific adviser, as I am sure you know, and the chief scientific advisers of all different Departments have discussions together about some cross-Government issues. On the exact details of what currently the chief scientific adviser is working on in this area I would have to come back to you with that, Chair.
Yes. On reading the plan, my initial impression, and I do not think it has changed from this hearing, is that the rhetoric around the scale of the issues facing us and the systemic change required—we absolutely hear what you are saying, Minister, about the fact that at least there is a plan here. It was not even being talked about under the previous Government. This is better than that and that is hard to argue with. However, that rhetoric about the systemic change does not entirely correlate with what we actually read in terms of the initial indicative actions in the plan. To bring this to a close, if people were picking this plan up and were looking for the real red meat that shows that we are going to have systemic change, get rid of the regime that has failed and move to a new future with this decisive action, which would be the section that you think they would most look at and say, “That is a real change. It is not tinkering around the edges. It is not looking to find a bit more evidence; it is actually a sign of the systemic change we are now going to have”?
The part on reform to UK REACH.
You think that is the most decisive thing. Thank you very much indeed. I appreciate your evidence and that of Mr Casale. We will bring this session to a close. Thank you very much.