Explanatory note

These Regulations revoke, revoke and replace, and revoke and make alternative provision for provisions of the following three instruments—

• Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures amending and repealing Directives 67/548/EEC and 1999/45/EC, and amending Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (EUR 2008/1272) (referred to in these Regulations as “GB CLP”);

• Regulation (EU) No 528/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2012 concerning the making available on the market and use of biocidal products (EUR 2012/528) (referred to in these Regulations as “GB BPR”);

• Regulation (EU) No 649/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2012 concerning the export and import of hazardous chemicals (recast) (EUR 2012/649) (referred to in these Regulations as “GB PIC”).

Regulation 2 introduces the Schedule, which contains detailed amendments to those three instruments as outlined below.

GB CLP provides the legislative means through which the United Kingdom continues to adopt and give legal effect to the United Nations Globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling of chemicals (‘the UN GHS’), an internationally-agreed voluntary system of hazard identification and communication, following the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. This involves among other things the maintaining by the Health and Safety Executive (“HSE”) of a mandatory classification and labelling list (“the MCL list”). Part 1 of the Schedule—

• revokes Articles 37 and 37A of GB CLP, which together contain the procedures for considering proposals for new or revised mandatory classification and labelling requirements depending on the origin and nature of the proposals, and replaces them with a single new Article 37 bringing together provision allowing for a fast track for consideration of proposals from certain territories or authorities including the EU and a procedure for consideration of other proposals (transitional provision is made by regulation 3 retaining the old procedures for proposals received or submitted before these Regulations come into force);

• revokes technical notes relating to entries on the MCL list, which appear in GB CLP notwithstanding that the MCL list itself does not;

• revokes Chapter 2 of Title V of GB CLP, which makes provision for notification requirements on suppliers and associated requirements for HSE to establish and manage a publicly accessible database of the notifications it receives;

• makes minor amendments to two other instruments consequential on the amendments outlined above.

GB BPR regulates the placing on the market and use of biocidal products, which are a diverse range of products that control harmful organisms, such as insecticides, rodenticides and disinfectants. It also makes provision for the assessment of the active substances used in biocidal products that have the controlling effect on such a harmful organism. Part 2 of the Schedule—

• revokes Article 14(5) of GB BPR and replaces it with amended provision enabling continued availability on the GB market until 31 July 2031 for a group of approved active substances for which an application for renewal of approval has been received, but where their approvals would otherwise expire before a decision on the renewal application could be taken;

• revokes Article 55(1) of GB BPR, which enables essential biocidal products to be allowed to remain on the market where their use is necessary to address a danger to public health, animal health or the environment which cannot be contained by other means, and replaces it with amended provision enabling those products to remain on the market until an authorisation decision is taken. This will allow for the product to be kept on the market either for up to 550 days (as at present), or until the product is authorised in a case where the continued need to use the product is not likely to be temporary;

• revokes references in the data protection rules in Article 60 of GB BPR which cover some, but not all, cases to which those rules are relevant, and replaces them with references to all Articles under which decisions on approval, renewal or review can be taken.

GB PIC implements the United Kingdom’s obligations under the Rotterdam Convention on the prior informed consent procedure for certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade^f1. It requires exporters of hazardous chemicals from Great Britain that are specified in a list maintained by HSE (“the GB PIC list”) to notify the importing country. For some chemicals the consent of the importing country is required before export can proceed. Part 3 of the Schedule—

• revokes provisions in Articles 2, 14, 19 and 23 of GB PIC to remove—

  • additional conditions presently applicable only to certain chemicals, so that the same conditions apply to all chemicals that require explicit/prior informed consent to import;

  • a requirement for exporters in certain cases to obtain a special reference identification number and include it in their export declaration;

• revokes references in Article 7 of GB PIC to provisions of assimilated law and replaces them with up-to-date references.

A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen.