Government science advisers have called for a dedicated minister and a long-term roadmap for the UK chemicals industry, warning that strategically important domestic capabilities face pressure from energy costs, ageing infrastructure, weak investment, and regulatory uncertainty.
The Council for Science and Technology published its advice on 25 August, although the underlying letter to the Prime Minister is dated 30 July. It makes two central recommendations: appoint a minister accountable for safeguarding critical chemical capabilities and future innovation, and produce a long-term sector roadmap within 12 months.
The council said: “Chemicals are critical to the UK’s national security, resilience and economy.”
Chemical production supports industries including food, healthcare, energy, defence, infrastructure, and manufacturing. Weakness in strategically important parts of the sector can therefore affect supply chains far beyond individual production sites, particularly where specialist materials have limited domestic alternatives.
The advisers describe several pressures affecting the industry. High energy costs, ageing assets, and under-investment in innovation are international challenges, while the UK also faces regulatory complexity, policy instability, and fragmented responsibility across government departments.
Under the first recommendation, a named minister would be responsible for coordinating policy and resolving trade-offs between departmental priorities. The council proposes supporting that role with a dedicated cross-government unit or taskforce drawing on independent technical and industrial expertise.
The second recommendation would require government to define the chemical capabilities and supply chains Britain needs for security, resilience, and growth by 2035. That assessment would identify where domestic production is essential and where diversified international sourcing, strategic partnerships, stocks, or substitution could provide sufficient resilience.
The proposed roadmap would examine whether those capabilities are commercially viable given their dependence on energy, feedstocks, infrastructure, skills, finance, regulation, and international markets. It would also establish a transition pathway towards a more competitive, lower-carbon, and circular industry.
Regulation is a prominent part of the recommendations. The council wants a framework that protects people and the environment while supporting innovation and competitiveness. It also calls for government to reduce UK-EU market access friction and provide clarity over the future of the UK Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals regime.
Those choices have direct commercial consequences. Chemical businesses frequently operate across integrated European supply chains, and regulatory divergence can create additional registration, testing, data, and compliance requirements. Duplicate processes raise costs even where products and underlying safety requirements remain broadly comparable.
The advice also highlights the exposure of industrial clusters including Teesside, the Humber, Runcorn and Widnes, and Grangemouth. These locations combine production facilities with specialist workforces, research capabilities, transport infrastructure, and supplier networks built up over long periods.
Once large industrial assets close, restoring equivalent capacity can require significant capital and lead time. That gives the debate a resilience dimension alongside the conventional questions of competitiveness and employment.
Energy policy is another central constraint. Chemical production can be highly energy intensive, leaving UK sites exposed when domestic industrial energy costs compare unfavourably with competing locations. Investment in lower-carbon processes can require substantial new infrastructure and equipment, increasing the importance of predictable policy over long investment horizons.
The government has already introduced measures including the Critical Chemicals Resilience Fund. The council’s recommendations seek a more permanent framework that connects individual interventions with a defined view of which capabilities the UK intends to retain or develop.
Publication of the advice does not commit ministers to adopt either recommendation. It does, however, establish a clear policy test: whether government creates a single point of ministerial accountability and develops the proposed roadmap within a year. Decisions taken during that period will influence investment conditions across an industry supporting some of the UK’s most strategically important supply chains.
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