Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Not Addressed
The loss of access to EU systems and lack of progress in taking forward the...
Recommendation
The loss of access to EU systems and lack of progress in taking forward the regulatory cooperation provisions set out in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement increase regulatory risks and costs. On leaving the EU, the regulators lost access to EU data sharing and cooperation arrangements. CMA can no longer share confidential information with the European Commission or member states in merger, competition or consumer enforcement cases, impacting its ability to effectively enforce competition law. FSA has also lost full access to the EU’s Rapid Alert System on Food and Feed (RASFF) which provides member states with information on food safety incidents, increasing the time and effort it takes to deal with food safety incidents. HSE no longer has access to the chemical safety data underpinning the EU’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations. Industry has estimated it will cost £800 million to replicate this data in the UK REACH system. The regulators are taking action to mitigate these issues, but in some instances the alternatives are more time consuming and are likely to increase costs over time. The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) recognises the value of voluntary cooperation on chemical regulation and includes provisions to establish a separate agreement on competition enforcement cooperation (including the sharing of confidential data). We are disappointed that no progress has been made in taking these issues forward, despite the regulators willingness to do so. Recommendation: The regulators should work together to share good practice on mitigations to address the loss of regulatory cooperation arrangements with the EU and write to the Committee in six months setting out progress in taking forward the cooperation arrangements set out in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation and explains that they hold robust information on spend for its two air quality programmes.
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation The government holds robust information on spend for its two air quality programmes: the Air Quality and Industrial Emissions Programme (Defra) and the Joint Air Quality Unit (Defra/DfT). Whilst the department holds overall strategic responsibility for the development and implementation of air quality policy, the levers which affect air pollution are varied, complex and sit across government. The department works closely with other government departments to manage interdependencies and maximise co-benefits of policies that affect air pollution. Where it is beneficial, the government sees the value in making one-off estimates of the cross-cutting economic impacts of policies that impact air pollution. For example, the department has estimated that air quality co-benefits of policies and measures to meet Carbon Budget 6 and Net Zero to be about £35 billion over 2020-2050. However, a wide and diverse range of complex policies across government affect air quality, including transport decarbonisation, active travel, increased use of renewable energy sources, planning regulations, and sustainable food production practices. The government cannot justify the disproportionate level of resource required to disaggregate the amount of spend driving air quality benefits for each of these policies. Due to the complexities surrounding the associated measures, any estimates produced would likely have large uncertainties, making them misleading and therefore unsupportive of greater accountability and transparency regarding government spending.