| On 29 April 2021, HSE received a request from the Defra Secretary of State, with the agreement of the Scottish and Welsh Governments, to prepare an Annex 15 restriction dossier assessing the use of lead in ammunition. The UK REACH lead in ammunition restriction proposals and 6-month public consultation were published on 6 May 2022. The statutory deadlines under UK REACH state that HSE (as the Agency for UK REACH) shall formulate the risk assessment final opinion within 9 months (i.e. by February 2023); and the socio-economic analysis final opinion within 12 months (i.e. by May 2023) of publication of the lead in ammunition restriction dossier. However, due to the significant number of responses to the consultation (2,759), which include many detailed and technical submissions, the Agency will not be in a position to formulate its opinion by these deadlines and, in line with the provisions in UK REACH, will extend both these deadlines by 6 months in order to analyse and take this information into account sufficiently. The Agency will therefore send the final risk assessment and socio-economic opinions on the restriction proposals to the Appropriate Authorities (i.e. the Defra Secretary of State and the Scottish and Welsh Governments) by August 2023 and November 2023 respectively. After receiving the final socio-economic opinion, the Appropriate Authorities will then have 3 months to make a decision on whether to accept the proposals. Get further information on the extension in ourpress release. | 