Christmas Adjournment

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

The lasting legacy of toddler Harper-Lee Fanthorpe, whose tragic death in my constituency last year touched us all, must be the introduction of a law relating to the safety of products containing button batteries. I promised Harper-Lee’s mum Stacy, when we first met in July 2021, that I would campaign to raise awareness of this issue, to ensure that other families would not experience the pain and loss that she and her family were suffering. Much has happened since that meeting and I want to update the House before the forthcoming Adjournment.

The Harper-Lee Foundation was established as a charity a year ago and I have worked with the British and Irish Portable Battery Association, the European Portable Battery Association and the Child Accident Prevention Trust to try to reduce the likelihood and frequency of children’s swallowing button batteries. At the parliamentary launch of the foundation earlier this year, many Members and key agencies signed a pledge to be button battery aware. In September, Stoke City Council was the first council in the country to pass a motion to be a button battery aware council—passed unanimously, because children’s safety is an issue that transcends political divides.

As we approach Christmas, I have called for parents and grandparents to be aware as they buy gifts for their family, or the Christmas lights and decorations that fill our homes, to check whether they contain button batteries, and, if so, whether they are in a child-resistant compartment. I have also called on retailers to be aware of the safety standards of any products they have on sale that could be harmful to children, and to remove unsafe products from their shelves or websites.

Last December, we sadly saw another button battery death, in Motherwell, Scotland. Hughie McMahon was just 17 months old. He swallowed a button battery from a toy, unlike the case of Harper-Lee, where the battery fell out of a remote control for an LED light. This is the issue that needs addressing. Button batteries are in so many different products with which a child may come into contact that a standard that applies to a single type of product, such as toys, is not the answer. We need what is called a horizontal standard that applies to anything containing a button or coin battery.

Why do we not have such a standard? The General Product Safety Regulations 2005 require new and used consumer products to be safe. In June 2019, the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch produced a report on undetected button and coin cell battery ingestion in children. One of the report’s key recommendations was that a standard be produced to set out consistent safety requirements to apply throughout the lifecycle of such batteries.

That standard was introduced in April 2021. The publicly available specification PAS7055:2021 states that there are specific product safety requirements for batteries present in toys, electronic devices, and medical devices. However, there are no consistent definitions, warnings, test methods or global standards, and the key issue is that the PAS is voluntary, so there are no penalties for ignoring the recommendations.

The Government have defined the key safety requirements for button and coin batteries, but sadly, despite the introduction of those recommendations, there has been no evidence of a reduction in the incidence of injuries and fatalities caused by swallowing those batteries. It is time, therefore, to push for legislation. Legislation in Australia came into effect this year, following an eight-year campaign after the deaths of three children, and sets significant fines for businesses and individuals that breach the safety law. The US is also planning to take more action.

It is now time for the UK to introduce similar legislation to stipulate enforceable safety standards: all button battery-powered products must have a child-resistant battery compartment; button batteries of up to 32 mm diameter must be sold in child-resistant packaging; for products supplied with a button battery, batteries must be secured within the battery compartment and not loose in the product packaging and products that use or contain button batteries must have clear and concise warnings, making the risk clear to consumers at point of purchase, including online sales.

I look forward to discussing the matter with the safety standards Minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy early in January and ask colleagues to support my campaign to introduce Harper-Lee’s Law in 2023. The need to legislate is backed by clinicians who see the devastating and life-changing effects of button battery ingestion, as well as the tragic deaths. Now is the time to build on the awareness campaign of the past year and ensure that next year we enshrine greater protection in law.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I end by wishing you, everybody in this House and everybody in the country a happy and safe Christmas—and, more than anything, a button battery aware Christmas.