Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment etc.) (UK (NI) Indication) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Friday 27th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his helpful letter and factsheet and for his introduction to this SI. It is extremely important that Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be able to operate effectively and safely after 31 December on a wide range of important aspects of life which residents take for granted.

During my time on Somerset County Council, I often went up to the scientific services laboratory on the third floor to look at some of the work being done there. It was very wide-ranging, from seizing unsafe toys to ensuring that weights and measures were accurate. If a consumer is buying 1 kilogram of potatoes they need to be sure that the instrument weighing the kilogram is accurate and is not weighing out 900 grams and calling it 1 kilogram. There are much more serious breaches of this legislation that can have disastrous consequences. I note that the UK does not currently have an approved body for pyrotechnic articles, so approval will be done in other countries. In the past, substandard fireworks have been imported and have had to be withdrawn at short notice due to safety issues. Can the Minister say whether there are plans to have an approved body for pyrotechnics based in this country in future?

The list of bodies in paragraph 2.14 of the Explanatory Memorandum is extensive and extremely varied. At this time of year, our thoughts not unnaturally turn to the safety of the toys and gadgets which appear on the lists of hopeful children. With the lockdown and the closure of the stores where parents and grandparents might normally inspect and buy their children’s presents, many of them are relying on buying online and by mail order. It is essential that the Government ensure that the law protects them through this SI. A package arriving via a van or the mail can often be very disappointing once it is unwrapped and not exactly what was viewed online.

The Government have estimated that more than 100,000 businesses will need to familiarise themselves with the changeover and recognise and use the new marking systems. At paragraph 12.1 the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“The analysis developed to inform this instrument demonstrated that there are limited/negligible additional costs to business associated with the specific provisions made in this instrument.”


Unfortunately, this is inaccurate. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee investigated this issue and obtained a copy of the assessment from the Government. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has already said, it found that between 10,000 and 17,000 UK manufacturers and up to 135,000 UK wholesalers and retailers will be impacted, with an estimated cost to business over a 10-year period of £25.7 million for conformity marking, £3.7 million for conformity assessment and £6.6 million for familiarisation—a total of around £36 million. This is a significant amount for a number of businesses. Can the Minister confirm that these costs are accurate?

I turn to the Northern Ireland protocol, which the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Lilley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, have spoken about eloquently. It requires that, if a product is for sale in Northern Ireland, it will need to be tested in a UK conformity centre. New regulations introduced new UKNI conformity marking, which allows products to be sold in Northern Ireland when they have been tested by an accredited body in Great Britain.

A product may bear both the UKNI and CE marks if it has been tested in both Great Britain and the EU, allowing the product to be sold in Northern Ireland and the rest of the EU. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted that this could give rise to a disagreement between the UK Government and the EU on whether accredited bodies in the rest of the UK will be able to provide conformity assessment for goods sold in Northern Ireland. The EU stated that they will not; the Government disagree with the EU view—the noble Lord, Lord Empey, referred to this. Can the Minister please provide clarification on this complex issue?

Paragraph 7.19 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“In some situations, regulators need to know about the composition of products before they are placed on the market. Businesses placing qualifying NI cosmetic products on the GB market will need to notify regulators about the contents of those products, in the same way that they inform EU regulators.”


Can the Minister say whether the regulators will be checking for plastic microbeads in wash-off cosmetic products?

I note that there was no formal consultation, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, and others have indicated. However, there was a series of informal engagements, with discussion around lead-in times given to allow businesses to adapt to the new regulations. It is extremely important to allow business to adapt. The Minister’s helpful factsheet states that the transitional arrangements allow for the UKCA marking to be used until 31 December 2022 and also allow new importers to set out their details until 2022. I fully support this SI and all its provisions and welcome the extension of the transition period to allow for full compliance by GB and Northern Ireland companies.