In 2025, the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) launched an inquiry into whether the UK government’s plans to tackle PFAS pollution are adequate. Drawing on evidence from scientists, regulators, affected communities, industry and environmental organisations, including CHEM Trust, the Committee recently concluded its inquiry and produced a detailed set of recommendations, accompanied by ambitious timelines, to address one of the most significant chemical pollution challenges of our time.
The UK government has now responded to the EAC’s recommendations. CHEM Trust welcomes the government’s continued commitment to delivering the PFAS Action Plan. We also welcome the confirmation that the UK will make use of the expert scientific and socio-economic assessments underpinning the universal PFAS restriction currently under consideration under EU REACH.
However, beyond these welcome statements, the government’s response raises serious concerns about the pace, ambition and urgency of future action on PFAS in the UK. Much of the response restates commitments already contained within the PFAS Action Plan, rather than responding to the EAC’s recommendations for stronger action. At a time when PFAS contamination continues to increase in the UK and globally, and the evidence of harm continues to grow, reiterating existing plans is not good enough.
Keeping pace with EU REACH
One area where this lack of urgency is particularly apparent is the reform of UK REACH. The EAC recommended reforms by March 2027 to enable faster restrictions on PFAS. However, the government’s response suggests these reforms may instead not be introduced until December 2028.
While the UK continues to develop its regulatory framework, the EU is progressing one of the world’s most ambitious restrictions on PFAS and continues to introduce additional restrictions, such as the ban on PFHxA and C9-C14 PFCAs. Every year that passes without effective regulation allows more PFAS to enter our environment, our drinking water and our food chain, adding to an ever-growing legacy of contamination that future generations will have to manage.
The government states that it intends to learn from developments in the EU. Yet unless UK REACH reform is significantly accelerated, the UK risks remaining several years behind EU action. A regulatory system that consistently follows rather than leads will leave people and the environment with weaker protection for longer. We urge the government to bring forward the proposed timelines for UK REACH reform so it can keep pace with scientific evidence and international action.
Over-reliance on voluntary industry action
The UK government also continues to place too much faith in voluntary industry action instead of introducing the robust regulation needed to tackle PFAS pollution at its source. PFAS contamination has become a global environmental crisis precisely because voluntary measures have failed to prevent their widespread use. Rather than relying on companies to phase out PFAS voluntarily or increase transparency at their own discretion, the government should introduce mandatory measures to phase out PFAS as a group and stop these chemicals from entering our bodies and the environment in the first place.
Strong, clear, and predictable regulation gives businesses the certainty they need to invest in safer technologies, creates a level playing field across industry, and rewards companies that are already developing PFAS-free alternatives. Many businesses across Europe are already demonstrating that innovation without using PFAS is both possible and commercially viable. The UK should be encouraging and accelerating this transition, not delaying it through regulatory uncertainty.
Stronger action needed to support affected communities
The EAC recognised the concerns of communities living with PFAS contamination and recommended enhanced biomonitoring and health screening for populations with higher levels of exposure. The government, however, maintains that PFAS blood testing is not currently recommended because it cannot predict future health outcomes and may create unnecessary concern. This response overlooks the wider purpose and value of biomonitoring.
Biomonitoring is not simply about predicting individual health outcomes. It is an essential public health tool that helps establish exposure levels, identify highly exposed populations, support epidemiological research, evaluate whether interventions are reducing exposure, and improve understanding of where further action is needed. For communities already living with uncertainty about PFAS contamination, it also provides transparency and reassurance that their concerns are being taken seriously.
The government’s response also misses the opportunity to establish the coordinated public health response that affected communities need. PFAS contamination cannot be addressed by environmental regulators alone. It requires a multi-agency approach, bringing together the Environment Agency, UK Health Security Agency, local authorities, water companies and healthcare providers to ensure communities receive consistent advice, appropriate health support and clear communication.
Lessons from Jersey
The experience in Jersey demonstrates what a more proactive response can look like. Following PFAS contamination linked to firefighting foams at the airport, the Jersey government established a dedicated PFAS Scientific Advisory Panel, introduced targeted blood monitoring programmes, commissioned independent expert advice and developed specific guidance for affected residents. The panel has also considered emerging scientific evidence on interventions that may reduce PFAS concentrations in the body, including regular blood donation, while making clear that evidence remains limited and recommendations must be based on individual medical advice. This is a far more joined-up approach than the one currently proposed in England.
It is unacceptable that the government has overlooked these wider benefits of biomonitoring and failed to recognise that communities need more than reassurance – they need practical support, coordinated public health action, and confidence that the government is taking their concerns seriously.
Turning the polluter pays principle into practice
The costs of remediating PFAS pollution in the UK have been estimated to run into billions of pounds. Every delay in preventing further contamination increases those costs. It is therefore essential that the financial burden of PFAS pollution does not fall disproportionately on taxpayers, water bill payers or affected communities. Recognising this, the EAC recommended consulting by March 2027 on establishing a national PFAS Remediation Fund and exploring an emissions levy to ensure polluters contribute towards the costs of cleaning up contamination.
It is therefore very disappointing that, rather than committing to these recommendations, the government’s response merely states that these options require further consideration and will continue to be explored as part of the longer-term PFAS Action Plan. Once again, there are no new commitments, no timetable and no clear pathway towards ensuring that those responsible for PFAS pollution, not the public, ultimately bear the costs of remediation.
The polluter pays principle is already well established in environmental policy. The challenge is no longer whether it should apply to PFAS, but when the government will put it into practice.
Urgent group-based source control is needed
Ultimately, the only effective way to prevent further PFAS contamination is to stop these chemicals entering the environment in the first place. Given the sheer number of PFAS, their persistence and their shared hazardous properties, regulating them individually is neither practical nor scientifically justified. Group-based source control remains the only realistic and cost-effective approach.
The government’s response to the EAC inquiry offers little that is genuinely new compared with its existing PFAS Action Plan. Rather than setting out the decisive action that the EAC called for, the UK government continues to prioritise further research, evidence gathering and assessments of impacts on businesses over the urgent action needed to prevent further pollution.
Communities living with PFAS pollution cannot afford to wait. Nor can taxpayers, regulators, water companies or future generations, who will ultimately bear the escalating financial and environmental costs of inaction. The government must urgently move beyond repeating existing commitments and take the decisive, preventative action needed to regulate PFAS as a group and stop pollution at its source, before even more irreversible harm is done.
