The UK has published a policy paper establishing its progress on the development of new chemical regulations that are expected to replace the European Union (EU) standards post-Brexit, known as UK Reach. However, experts have expressed concerns that the new rules would expose citizens to potentially dangerous substances.

The government’s new plans will aim to reduce the “hazard” information that chemical companies must provide to register substances in the UK to an “irreducible minimum” in a bid to reduce business costs.

The UK has not been part of the EU’s chemicals regulations since 2021. However, the country has yet to introduce its own version of the Reach system. The delays were mainly attributed to a government impact assessment that found that the cost of duplicating the safety data held in Brussels to re-register 22,400 chemicals would amount to £2bn.

In the time since the UK left the EU Reach programme, the bloc has restricted the use of eight...