§ Dr. TongeTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what progress he has made on adopting the regulations based on the Copenhagen charter on safer chemicals. [8316]
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§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 23 October 2001]: The Copenhagen charter is a set of principles that a group of European environment and consumer organisations believe should form part of a new European Union chemicals policy. The UK is working to ensure that the regulations which implement the EU Strategy achieve the improvements in protection of people and the environment that the Copenhagen charter seeks.
While the Government support the aims of the charter, we do have reservations about the practicality of some of its proposals. For example, we believe that a system which involved approving all uses of all chemicals should not delay action on the chemicals of most concern. The charter also does not take into account other issues that are important to the UK, such as the need to minimise the extra animal testing that will result from the EU Strategy.
The UK and other EU member states agreed a set of conclusions at the Environment Council in June which incorporated many of the elements of the Copenhagen charter. A copy of the Environment Council conclusions is available in the Library of the House.