Brexit process

[stumuz1]

Don't worry, there will be a massive cost to No Deal Brexit.....

That really depends on your point of view or if you are a doomer or optimist.

I attended the first stakeholder event at the Hilton Hotel in Liverpool in August.

As for REACH, the HSE will carry across existing REACH registrations held by UK-based companies directly into the UK’s replacement for REACH, legally ‘grandfathering’ the registrations into the UK regime.

Set up a transitional light-touch notification process for UK companies importing chemicals from the European Economic Area (EEA) before the UK leaves the EU that don’t hold a REACH registration.
This would reduce the risk of interruption in supply chains for companies currently relying on a registration held by an EEA-based company. This would mean that those UK companies could continue to buy those chemicals from the EEA without any break.

More importantly for the chemical sector they can carry into the UK system all existing authorisations to continue using higher-risk chemicals held by UK companies.

They basically mapped out the consequence of Deal and No Deal Scenarios..., covering the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) and various major pieces if chemical legislation such as REACh, CLP, BPR, PPP etc....
To summarise No Deal, the UK would set up near identical regulatory systems which would to add to costs massively but give no visible benefit

Nope. They have stated that chemicals will need to register with UK REACH. UK companies will have their data sets grandfathered. EU companies will need to pay the extra costs.

Also remember CLP is a global regulation not a EU regulation. CLP merely gives effect to GHS(globally harmonised system)

even without considering the skill shortages to implement and the disruption involved... The logical conclusion is a massive shrinkage of the chemical sector.

Or expansion. The UK is the worlds leading provider of chemical legal services. This is not going to change since most chemical regulation is global.

No Deal will wreck UK manufacturing far worse than Maggie ever managed to....

I'll put you in the doomer camp!

[Lord Beria3]

In other words, more scaremongering bullshit!

[kenneal - lagger]

Because of the hysterical outpourings of many Remainers I am beginning to think that they have a mental illness that shows as these hysterical doomer rants.

I am a doomer as far as climate change/resource depletion, a much more serious problem, is concerned but I am approaching that problem in a positive way, planning for the future. I think that I would jump off a cliff if I felt the way that these Remainers do! I almost feel sorry for them.

[kenneal - lagger]

Listening to the news this evening it looks like the world economy is on the way down again with the US stock markets down 2 % or more. I suppose that any downturn in the UK markets will be blamed on Brexit.

They will be saying that we should try to hide from this downturn in the EU. If we do that we will be taken down even further by the crumbling edifice that is the EU. The instability of the Mediterranean countries is likely to be the destruction of the EU any way.

[Mark]

As for REACH, the HSE will carry across existing REACH registrations held by UK-based companies directly into the UK’s replacement for REACH, legally ‘grandfathering’ the registrations into the UK regime.

Set up a transitional light-touch notification process for UK companies importing chemicals from the European Economic Area (EEA) before the UK leaves the EU that don’t hold a REACH registration.
This would reduce the risk of interruption in supply chains for companies currently relying on a registration held by an EEA-based company. This would mean that those UK companies could continue to buy those chemicals from the EEA without any break.

More importantly for the chemical sector they can carry into the UK system all existing authorisations to continue using higher-risk chemicals held by UK companies.

You make it all sound so easy......,
Setting up a UK equivalent to ECHA/REACh would cost £££££££
Replicating the IT systems IUCLID5/6....£££££
What about all the SIEFs and shared Data Sets submitted under EU REACh..... access to these would need to be negotiated (bought) for UK REACh which would require cooperation and cost ££££££

[Mark]

Nope. They have stated that chemicals will need to register with UK REACH. UK companies will have their data sets grandfathered. EU companies will need to pay the extra costs.

Remember CLP is a global regulation not a EU regulation. CLP merely gives effect to GHS(globally harmonised system)

Regarding grandfathering - manageable if you're the lead registrant, but what about SIEFs....???
Are you confident that all small volume chemicals imported from the EU would be registered and continue to be available.....???
Also, they're talking about a new database for UK CLP - more £££££££
& BPR....., & PPP...... - more £££££

[Mark]

Or expansion. The UK is the worlds leading provider of chemical legal services. This is not going to change since most chemical regulation is global.

There may well be a boom in chemical legal services, but I didn't say that.
Call me a 'doomer' if you wish, but I stick to by my belief that a No Deal Brexit would add massive costs to the UK Chemical Manufacturing Industry.
I'm not alone in that belief, but I guess we'll see how it pans out soon enough.....

[Lord Beria3]

Eurointelligence latest...

A deal so close, and yet so far

The FT reports this morning that the EU and the UK were close to a Brexit deal. We reserve judgement on this specific issue, but note the more important point that the parliamentary math is - as of yet - not conducive to approval, and indeed has become less so over the last few days. It is interesting that the Times has no Brexit news at all among its lead stories this morning, while the Guardian reports on a Kent motorway being turned into a car park as part of the no-deal preparations. And this despite the fact that Theresa May has invited her inner war cabinet to a meeting yesterday to update them on the state of the talks. The Telegraph notes that there is unhappiness among eurosceptic ministers about the lack of an end-date for what we call the second of three stages of Brexit. 

The already-agreed 21-month transitional period is to be followed by a further phase during which the whole of the UK remains in a customs union with the EU. The UK is to stay there until a free-trade agreement is negotiated, including an agreement for its provisional application prior to full ratification. The end date is an important issue for the eurosceptics, but what many in the UK fail to realise is that it is also an important issue for Michel Barnier. There is no appetite in the European Commission, or in France, to keep the UK locked in a provisional customs union that becomes permanent over time. The row over the end date is a red herring: the EU side will want to move to a permanent arrangement just as much as the eurosceptics do. Businesses prefer planning clarity, and so will politicians in this case.

The FT noted that two eurosceptic ministers, Andrea Leadsom and Esther McVey, were last night on the verge of quitting. The paper says that May agrees to the European Commission’s principal ideas for the Northern Irish backstop. This would involve minimal checks on goods travelling across the Irish Sea once the FTA takes effect, while Barnier is happy to include the whole of the UK in the customs union until it does. This means there will be no controls in Ireland during that period, followed by minimal controls in the Irish channel afterwards.

The current wording of the drafts that are circulating means that there would be no firm end date to the second period, but what the FT quotes amounts to a clear pathway towards an FTA. We believe that the nature of this transition is the key political issue in the UK, and it is possible that May could seek ways to firm up the path towards an FTA even if it does not include a specific date. 

Polly Toynbee, the political commentator of the Guardian, writes that it is not always easy to separate signal and noise when it comes to Northern Irish politics. But her sources are suggesting that this time the DUP is not bluffing. They already started boycotting the government this week, by supporting an opposition amendment on the agriculture bill. She writes that the absence of a border between Northern Ireland and the UK constitutes the fundamental rationale for the DUP's existence.

"That’s who its MPs are, what they eat and fire-breathe, their only purpose on Earth. Do they care what happens on the Irish border? Not as much as the holy UK bond across the Irish Sea."

She also noted a poll among Tory party members showing a majority supporting the idea that a breakdown in the peace process was a price worth paying for Brexit. She further reports that the Labour leadership is very confident that the vast majority of Labour MPs will follow Jeremy Corbyn in his rejection of Theresa May’s deal - whatever it will be. She herself concludes that it is hard to see more than a trickle of Labour MPs responding to any appeals to patriotism in support of May’s deal. So this would beg the question: where should parliamentary support for the deal come from? An open-ended customs union may satisfy the Tory Remainers, who themselves plotted to convene a caucus to vote down the deal. But it will energise the European Research Group of Tory eurosceptics. Toynbee suggests, probably correctly, that the opposition from the hard Brexiteers might be smaller than initial estimates suggested. But if the Labour Party sticks with Corbyn and the DUP votes no, the game is up under any scenario.

There is one caveat. The Labour Party’s opposition to the deal is based on the illusion that there are still alternatives. The British debate has not yet entered the world of deal versus cliff-edge. A no vote would throw up a whole number of alternatives, including a second ratification vote closer to the Brexit deadline, new elections, or a second referendum though not necessarily with a Remain option. The fact that May appears to be seeking an early deal suggests that she might already be working on a plan B, in case of a failure to assemble a parliamentary majority for her deal. She seems to have decided against the other strategic option - to procrastinate and strike a deal at the last minute, so as to avoid any uncertainty about the dire consequences of a failure to ratify.

[UndercoverElephant]

What is her "plan B" then? A no-deal, presumably.

[Mark]

Given the IPCC's report on 1.5 degrees and what the cuts need to be, this 'massive shrinkage' sounds about right.

Agree that we need to cut consumption of everything - chemicals included
However, as we are structured today, society still 'needs' paints, paper, adhesives, water treatment, flea killer, hair dye, etc. etc. etc.
These materials will still be manufactured - if not in the UK, then elsewhere and imported - which is actually worse for CO2.
Getting the whole world to agree to having less is the key, but also extremely difficult as it goes against most peoples' natural instincts for 'more'...

[stumuz1]

You make it all sound so easy.....

It's not that difficult!

Setting up a UK equivalent to ECHA/REACh would cost £££££££
Replicating the IT systems IUCLID5/6....£££££

This is no bigee, ECHA/REACh is just a doomsday book for chemicals. All hazardous information is publicly available. That's it raison d'etre.

So, the UK will cut and paste the hazardous info over.

Cheers EU! And no contributions to ECHA. Although i will miss the trips to Helsinki.

What about all the SIEFs and shared Data Sets submitted under EU REACh..... access to these would need to be negotiated (bought) for UK REACh which would require cooperation and cost ££££££

No. The UK firm will have the data set already. So no cost. If they are in a transnational sief, then they will have IP'd the data set or submitted only their part. Therefore the EU side of the sief will have to buy the data from UK firm or stop using it.

The only cost to the UK manufacturers is they will become a importer, so will need an only representative in any of the EU 27. I have chosen Tenerife.

[stumuz1]

[
Also, they're talking about a new database for UK CLP - more £££££££
& BPR....., & PPP...... - more £££££

PPP and BPR.

These are separate to REACH.

The point of these is to control, reduce, and hopefully get rid of the products they produce.

PPP = Glyphosate

BPR = DDT

Who wants to increase this trade?

[Mark]

We could do with a massive shrinkage on the agricultural chemicals sector. Even the UN says that the future is small scale organic rather than industrial agriculture.

Again, don't disagree, but it's not going to happen overnight and in the meantime we've got 7.5 billion people and rising to feed....
If the UK agro-chemical sector shrinks tomorrow, the same products would just be replaced like-for-like from a country with lower environmental and manufacturing standards...
Unfortunately that's the realpolitik of the world we live in....

[Mark]

The point of these is to control, reduce, and hopefully get rid of the products they produce.

PPP = Glyphosate

BPR = DDT

Who wants to increase this trade?

Nobody, that's exactly the point...., but however we wish it, these substances would still exist in a No Deal Brexit world, so the infrastructure to regulate them would need to be set up..... £££££££
By the time we leave the EU, about 1/3 of the biocidal products will be have been fully assessed.... some substances are already 10-15 years into study programmes....
The UK would then have to start again from scratch......, what a waste of time/money and it would probably also require a whole new tranche of (animal) testing....

[Mark]

Setting up a UK equivalent to ECHA/REACh would cost £££££££
Replicating the IT systems IUCLID5/6....£££££

This is no bigee, ECHA/REACh is just a doomsday book for chemicals. All hazardous information is publicly available. That's it raison d'etre.

So, the UK will cut and paste the hazardous info over.

Cheers EU! And no contributions to ECHA. Although i will miss the trips to Helsinki.

If we leave on a No Deal, we won't have access to ECHA - we won't be cutting/pasting anything, we'll be starting again.....
At the moment we share the costs with 27 other countries.
With our own system, we'd have to carry the full cost - HSE and DEFRA desperately trying to recruit already, but these type of people don't grow on trees....
I'm sure you know complicated IUCID is - just sorting the IT would be a nightmare...., and we all know how good governments are in that area....