UK’s Glyphosate Approval Heads Toward a Likely Rollover as HSE’s Consultation Stays Unopened
15 October 2026, London: Great Britain’s approval for glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, is increasingly likely to be rolled over for another year rather than renewed outright or withdrawn, as the regulator responsible for deciding its fate has still not opened the public consultation it promised months ago, with the current approval due to expire on December 15, 2026.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), through the renewal assessment process set out on its own active substances register, is reviewing whether glyphosate still meets GB legal criteria for approval. The assessment includes a critical review of the European Union’s 2023 renewal assessment report on the chemical and draws on new scientific and regulatory information submitted by the Glyphosate Renewal Group (GRG), an industry coalition that includes Bayer, Syngenta and Nufarm. HSE has accepted the GRG’s renewal application as admissible and has asked the group for further information, which will be made public once received.
According to HSE’s own guidance page, the regulator still needs to run a public comment period on its draft conclusion before any decision can be made, and that period will only begin once HSE issues an e-bulletin announcing it. As of mid-October, that announcement had not gone out. Farmers Weekly reported on October 9, updated October 12, that HSE “expects to launch” the statutory consultation, language that suggests the process remains behind the schedule ministers had indicated earlier in the year. In a written parliamentary answer given on February 6, 2026, Stephen Timms, Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions, told Parliament that HSE expected to open the consultation in “summer 2026.” That window has now passed without the consultation starting, pushing the timeline for a final decision closer to, or past, the December deadline.
Because of that compressed timeline, industry and campaign groups now both expect a further temporary extension rather than a substantive outcome this year. Nick Mole of the Pesticide Action Network UK, which opposes glyphosate’s continued use, has said officials are considering a one-year rollover. Under that scenario, GB’s approval would be extended again while a separate, larger process plays out: the developing UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement, which the government intends to have in effect by around mid-2027. Once that agreement takes hold, Great Britain’s pesticide rules would move toward “dynamic alignment” with the EU, meaning GB would in practice mirror future EU decisions on active substances and maximum residue limits rather than running a fully separate assessment track.
That contrasts with the position in Northern Ireland, which already follows EU pesticide rules under the Windsor Framework. The EU renewed glyphosate’s approval there, and across the bloc, until December 2033, a far longer runway than GB currently has. If HSE’s review concludes that glyphosate still meets the approval criteria, GB renewal could run for up to 15 years; if not, HSE would first examine whether a more restricted approval is workable before any phase-out of products begins.
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