UK Mandated Classification and Labeling of 88 Substances Now in Effect

On June 24, 2024, the UK's CLP authority, HSE, announced that it has granted legal effect to 88 chemical substances listed in the UK's Mandatory Classification and Labelling (GB MCL) list. This update took effect immediately upon its release and complies with regulations. The updates are based on the 14th and 15th Adaptations to Technical Progress (ATP), which update the CLP Regulation, issued by the European Commission.

These two ATP were published and came into force before the end of the transition period of Brexit and the HSE has already added these substances to GB MCL list. However, they were not included in GB law after UK left the European Union on January 31, 2020. HSE has now decided to use the procedures indicated by Article 37 and Article 37A of GB CLP Regulation to update the GB MCL list to solve this issue.

The MCL consolidated summary of these 88 substances has been published on HSE website (https://www.hse.gov.uk/chemical-classification/assets/docs/cwbsd-aapu-0675.pdf). The proposed GB MCL of 62 substances is consistent with the conclusions given in the 14th and 15th ATP. The GB MCL of 26 substances were revised. These 88 substances will maintain the mandatory classification and labelling that the UK agreed to while still an EU member state. For titanium dioxide in powder form and granulated copper which were mentioned in the previous HSE announcement, were deleted from GB MCL list at this time. A number of reported errors were also corrected in this update. In addition, the entry of N,N-dimethyl-p-toluidine was amended and the entry of propylbenzene was added.

After their publication, the 14th and 15th ATPs took effect in the EU on September 2020 and March 1, 2022, respectively. Although the EU harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) only became legally effective after the implementation period ended, suppliers were previously allowed to apply the classification and labelling of these 88 substances in the EU before the full application date. Currently, the mandatory classification and labelling of these substances have legal effects in the EU and Northern Ireland. HSE had also advised duty holders to follow the classification and labelling of these substances in the GB MCL list before December 31, 2020.

As a result, many duty holders involved with these substances may have already implemented the relevant classification and labelling based on earlier advice. Companies that have not yet updated their classification and labelling need to start making revisions immediately. 

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Further Information 

Technical Report

Ministerial decision on 88 chemical substances from the 14th and 15th Adaptations to Technical Progress to Regulation