How has Brexit affected the UK’s regulation of contaminants?

However, DEFRA (The Department of the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs) announced that the deadlines for registering contaminants under UK REACH would be extended by 3 years (which would have meant that the new deadlines would have been October 2026, October 2028 and October 2030). In July 2025 a public consultation was opened to extend the UK REACH registration deadlines, to 2029 or beyond to allow for the implementation of a new Alternative Transitional Registration Model (ATRm). It is claimed this new model will reduce industry costs by relying on existing EU hazard data and focusing on UK-specific exposure and use data, but the model is still in development.

Should we be concerned about contaminant regulation in the UK?

Criticism of UK contaminant regulation has focused on enforcement gaps, particularly concerning sewage and agricultural runoff, leading to widespread river pollution and breaches of environmental law by regulators and water companies. Other criticisms include a lack of regulation for emerging contaminants like PFAS and biocides, insufficient monitoring of contaminants and the potential for chemical safety standards post-Brexit to get weakened by diverging from EU rules. There has been particular criticism related to the inadequate regulation of emerging contaminants and the lack of a comparable mechanism to the EU’s Watch List for monitoring emerging threats, weak regulations for substances such as PFAS and other forever chemicals.

There is some recognition of this. In 2025 The Environmental Audit Committee announced a major inquiry into PFAS contamination, aiming to evaluate the UK’s regulatory system and whether it is equipped to manage the rising risks these chemicals pose to public health and the food supply chain. The inquiry will explore whether UK institutions, including the Environment Agency and UK REACH are sufficiently equipped and robust enough to detect, monitor and mitigate PFAS pollution whether current research and testing infrastructure can keep pace with emerging risks.

Children often start attending school from their 4^th birthday onwards and as they grow up they will make more independent decisions about what to eat and put in their bodies. Children are however still considered children up until their 18^th birthday. Some teenagers may still be growing beyond this age. As children are growing, developing, going through puberty and facing all the pressures and pleasures of life during this period they are more vulnerable than adults. Whilst their increasing body weight makes their risk lower in terms of their proportional exposure to additives and contaminants, they are still at increased risk when we consider that the composition of most foods and drinks is based on tolerable intakes by adults. We know that some food components and contaminants can impact on the development of children and in some ways this group may be at greater risk as society fails to see them as vulnerable in the same way as infants and pre-school children. The diets of children in this age group may also be poor, lacking in variety as they may choose foods high in fat, salt and sugar and eat the same foods regularly thus exposing themselves to some additives and contaminants in much higher amounts than they would be exposed to from a more varied diet.