Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

23: Clause 2, page 2, line 42, at end insert “and emergency services”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is intended to ensure regulated marketplaces co-operate with emergency services (where appropriate) to protect consumers from unsafe products.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, much of this Bill, as we know, is underpinned by secondary legislation, which has yet to be set out. That, of course, includes online marketplaces. To support the development of effective regulation, the Government, I hope, will set out their timetable for developing such secondary legislation as soon as possible. They should also provide clarification on who those referred to in the Bill as the “relevant authorities” are, particularly in relation to online marketplaces, which have to co-operate with others in Clause 2.

The UK’s fire and rescue services provide front-line response when dangerous products are sold in an online marketplace and catch fire or set fire to other properties and cause terrible burns to anyone who happens to be nearby. The London Fire Brigade, to which I am most grateful for the information it has given me, has seen a stark rise in e-bike and e-scooter fires in recent years. It responds to an incident about every 48 hours now. In this year alone, there were 131 fires from January to September. Given the role of the fire and rescue services, it would be helpful to set it out and recognise it in regulations. That is the reason for my Amendment 23, which is the lead amendment in this group, and Amendment 105, which goes with it.

Amendment 23 would ensure that regulated marketplaces co-operate with emergency services where appropriate to protect consumers from unsafe products and allow fire and rescue services to respond to fire safety concerns about known products. Some online marketplaces already co-operate with fire and rescue services. One of those—which I will not name because I do not think it appropriate to provide advertising—is a major online supplier that does include safety advice from the London Fire Brigade, but unfortunately, not all sites do.

The Bill is a welcome step to protect consumers from harmful products. It has very wide scope, but it needs to cover the online marketplaces that facilitate the sale or giving away of products through private individuals from one to another, as well as those sold as new. That includes the likes of some of the trading websites—again, I will not name them because I do not want to advertise them. From investigations by the London Fire Brigade, we know that products sought from second-hand online marketplaces include e-bikes, chargers and batteries, which have the potential to cause great harm. It has seen examples of incidents such as the Sutton railway station fire in March, when fire crews were called to the station during rush hour as commuters were on their way home. A bike owner had bought an e-bike from an online marketplace four months beforehand and had had no issues with the purchase. The station commander has confirmed that the fire was ferocious, happened extremely quickly and would have been devastating if things had worked out differently. He said that he hates to think of the tragic consequences that could have occurred. It was, in a way, just fortunate that it happened where it did and that no one was injured, but it serves to highlight the dangers when products are purchased or given away for free from one individual to another.

I know that Amendment 32 has already been debated, and I apologise to the Committee that I was unable to be here; I was on an aeroplane, because the railway lines were flooded. But I read Hansard, and the comments there are all relevant to the stark rise in e-bike fires in the capital.

Turning to Amendment 105 and Clause 7, the proposals would give the regulator the power to require companies subject to the regulation to provide information on the products being sold. As drafted, this clause would give the regulator only the power to require the provision of information and does not give them a responsibility to share this with bodies that have a statutory duty or responsibility for public safety, including fire and rescue services. The role of the data from the London Fire Brigade has been really important and has shown us the scale of the problem. Ensuring that emergency services have access to all the data will be welcome going forward in monitoring safety and spotting things—perhaps products that we currently cannot even imagine, which may come on to the marketplace and subsequently prove to be unsafe.

The change to Clause 7 in my Amendment 105 would ensure that regulations make provision for sharing information about unsafe products with the emergency services, including fire and rescue services, and that they have the information they need to respond to these emerging risks. They also run prevention campaigns and can provide accurate safety messaging, which can all be supportive of public safety, so that the Bill can meet its overall and much-needed aims. I beg to move.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I rise briefly to support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness. I also draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that when I moved Amendments 2 and 27 in an earlier group, on the issue of installation, I pointed out that in respect of the potentially very dangerous lithium-ion batteries used in EV charging-point systems, for example, and solar panel array storage batteries, there is currently no requirement on the competent person scheme individual who is installing those systems to notify relevant authorities of the installing of those batteries.

I pointed out at the time that lithium-ion batteries, about which we will no doubt speak a great deal when we come to group 5, can create huge fires at high temperatures and very toxic gases; I also pointed out that, crucially, they cannot be put out by the use of water. That is why it is so important that the relevant authorities, particularly the emergency services, are aware of the current location of such devices. The current arrangements require the individual house owner to make such a notification. My amendment argued that it should be the responsibility of the installer not only to check on the safety of the entire system but to make that notification. For that reason, I am particularly supportive of the noble Baroness’s amendment.

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In essence, we think that the noble Baroness’s amendments—the second one, in particular—are well intentioned but go too far. They would mean that we would have to do this in every circumstance. We believe that we have the right method to have a discretionary, proportionate approach. However, I would be happy to meet the noble Baroness to discuss this further—or my noble friend would be, I should say.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I am most grateful to the Minister for having such an open door in discussing these issues. I may be wrong, but I understood from the London Fire Brigade that, although its collection of data is comprehensive, other fire brigades around the country do not feed in in the same way. We also have the issue of devolved responsibilities in the devolved nations. Therefore, there is a need to clarify data sharing. I wonder whether we might need to go over this in order to be clear in regulation that some incidents are notifiable.

In responding, the Minister referred to carbon monoxide, which is a colourless gas that does not smell but that can, at high levels, kill you in three minutes. Carbon monoxide deaths are still occurring in this country because of faulty boilers, gas cookers and so on; they are also caused by faulty vehicles when exhaust fumes leak. I understand that we cannot have regulation that includes notifying absolutely everything, but we need further debate on where to draw the line in terms of what becomes notifiable and what is not. It is about an assessment of risk of harm, perhaps.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

On carbon monoxide, one of the issues concerns medical certificates and cause of death; there is a big problem because, often, carbon monoxide poisoning is not mentioned. The argument is that there is nothing in this legislation that precludes taking action in the way the noble Baroness wants us to take action. The question is whether the noble Baroness’s amendment is proportionate; we can have a further discussion about that.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I completely accept that it is about what is and is not included. I recall having learned, on many occasions, the danger of having lists in legislation, because there is always something that has not been included, which becomes a tension. I look forward to further discussion. I am most grateful to others for supporting these amendments and recognising their importance. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 23.

Amendment 23 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I found the introduction to these amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the clarification from the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, very revealing. It is a reminder that you can have a product made somewhere that comes into this country and then gets badged by lots of different people, but it is the same basic product with the same problems. The two examples that come to mind are the tumble dryers, when there was a fault in how they were constructed, and magnetic toys, which eventually got withdrawn. Several children ended up inhaling or swallowing small magnets that were in those toys, which were marketed under lots of different guises—but the basic product that came in included these little magnetic particles.

It has been a really interesting debate, because you can see that there is a point at which the trading standards people have the powers to intervene. I hope that, in responding, the Minister will able to describe to us how the powers are strong enough at the point of entry, rather than the trading standards people having to go after one label, then another and then another. That will be very heavy on workload and will not deal with the problem of an unsafe product being produced elsewhere and brought into the country.

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con)]

My Lords, I support most of the amendments in this group, but I particularly want to support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley—namely, Amendments 31, 85, 97, 98 and 109. Some of those are also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath. I declare an interest as president of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute. My predecessor in that role, of course, was the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, hence our common approach to the issues raised.

In relation to Amendments 31 and 98, dealing with fulfilment houses, those houses play a critical role in the distribution chain, especially for products from overseas retailers. These amendments would ensure that they were accountable for product safety, thereby reducing the risk of non-compliant goods reaching consumers. Amendment 98 also addresses gaps in the supply chain. The fulfilment houses play a critical role in the distribution chain for overseas sellers and the amendment would ensure that they were accountable for product safety, reducing the risk of non-compliant goods reaching consumers, but would also require fulfilment houses to maintain compliance records and facilitate inspections. The amendment would increase traceability and accountability for the products that they handle. Furthermore, Amendment 98 aligns fulfilment houses with current due diligence obligations. While they already register for tax due diligence, this extension to product safety is a logical step towards ensuring safe consumer products across the board.