Speeches by Hardy.

“As you have quite rightly pointed out, we are not ending the entire PFAS production tomorrow because, as pointed out, that would have a huge impact on the essential uses for which it is being used today. I don’t imagine you are advocating for that either. In terms of how we are going to pay for it, the polluter pays pr…”

“As I say, with drinking water, they are currently already meeting their standards while the limit is non-statutory, so then when you make it statutory, no, I would not on drinking water.”

“The really good thing is that because the Drinking Water Inspectorate is so good, it puts in non-statutory limits already. When I came into Government I said, “That is brilliant. You have non-statutory limits. I like it and I want to make them statutory,” and that is exactly what we are going to do. Just to reassure yo…”

“You know what I am going to say now.”

“Aha—and we are in some areas. I am pleased you asked me that question because then I get to tell you about drinking water. Yes, in some areas we are. On drinking water, we have some of the best drinking water in the whole world. Its standards are incredibly high. The Drinking Water Inspectorate is incredible. It is one…”

“Yes, that is a really important issue. Pesticides sit outside of what we are talking about today, but that issue is part of the EU reset negotiations and the SPS agreement. That is live at the moment and I am not personally involved in those negotiations so I don’t know how much of an update I can give you, other than …”

“That is the reforms that we were talking about and how we look at REACH. As Marc pointed out as well, we will be looking carefully at what is happening with the EU and where they get to when it comes to PFAS restrictions and what that regime actually ends up looking like. This comes down to fundamentally changing the s…”

“We have talked about our new approach—how we want to add chemicals to the list and how we want to catch up—but one of the other things we want to do is look at research and development of alternatives. I think that is important because at the moment there is a list of essential use and I would say most people, if not e…”

“At the moment we have a system where there is divergence because the previous Government after Brexit set their own system. As Marc explained and illustrated, this has meant that as the EU has added chemicals to the candidate list, the authorisation list, the restriction list, there has been divergence over time. We ha…”

“As Marc illustrated, we will consult on exactly how that divergence model is going to work. Of course, to reassure the Committee, the environmental factor is hugely important. I am yet to see—of all the many, many people I have spoken to who supported Brexit—anybody who thinks the reason to leave the European Union was…”

“Do you want to explain all this in detail, Marc?”

“It designates a substance of very high concern so I will push back gently on that. When it comes to EA funding, again I do want to reiterate to the Committee that it is this Government that increased funding to the EA by £188 million this year after the previous Government slashed it dramatically down to its lowest lev…”

“Thank you, Chair. Putting chemicals on the candidate list is not a mere signal to the industry. Putting chemicals on the candidate list is more than a mere signal that we might do something about it.”

“I am happy to explain.”

“I am sorry; I disagree with you. I think the candidate list—”

“You are right. The candidate list is a list of chemicals that we have high concern about. This is where I differ from the previous Government. The previous Government were only looking to consider putting things on the candidate list if they were going to move it into the authorisation list, and what this has meant in …”

“Again, I probably have not explained it very well. We are not going to ban individual PFAS. There are different ways of grouping them. Perhaps Marc, with his scientific knowledge, could explain how the different ones are grouped, which might help illustrate it. We are not talking about an individual one because there a…”

“We are changing the system when it comes to UK REACH, absolutely. We are changing the way in which we identify and restrict the use of certain chemicals for UK REACH so we are changing that system. That will make it quicker and easier for us to add chemicals to the authorisation list or restriction list and we are doin…”

“It is a good thing that we listen to experts under this Government. It is a good thing that we have research and information, that we take knowledge in, and we recognise that where there is expertise we should listen to it, learn from it and understand it. It is also good that, under this Government, we are having an E…”

“As it mentions in the plan as well, we are looking very carefully at other jurisdictions and how they do that. As I was trying to explain—I will try again—the system that we have at the moment is laborious, slow and takes an awfully long time to put any chemicals into restriction, so we need to change the system and th…”