Draft Batteries (Placing on the Market) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we start, just a quick domestic. If we open the windows, the heat will probably get worse, and the doors have to be closed, so please feel free to divest yourselves of clothing within reason.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Batteries (Placing on the Market) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026. 

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I have immediately availed myself of your generous offer to take some clothes off; it is always a good way to start the afternoon. If anyone has had the scampi and chips in the Members’ Tea Room, that will keep us powering through.

These draft regulations were laid before the House on 4 June. In 2023, the European Union replaced its 2006 batteries directive with a new batteries regulation, which introduced updated “placing on the market” requirements for batteries, including design, information and labelling specifications. The EU regulation achieves several objectives. By introducing new requirements relating to carbon footprint, performance, durability and recycled content, and by updating the requirements for the removability and replaceability of batteries from containing devices, it addresses the environmental and safety performance of batteries.

The EU regulation introduces specific safety requirements for stationary battery energy storage systems and updates information requirements, including on batteries’ state of health and expected lifetime. The EU regulation introduces a digital battery passport and supply chain due diligence policies for larger businesses that are placing batteries on the market. Previous requirements relating to the restriction of certain substances in batteries are also carried forward. The EU regulation introduces conformity assessments with the CE mark to demonstrate compliance with the requirements that I have just listed.

Those changes reflect the rapid growth in sectors such as electric vehicles—including cars, vans and e-bikes—portable electronics and energy storage, alongside the increasing volume and complexity of batteries now in circulation. Those requirements apply directly in Northern Ireland, as they do in EU member states. They phase in over time, meaning that some requirements are already in force, and others are due to come into force on future dates specified by the EU regulation.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

I am listening very carefully, and this is about assuring the battery manufacturing process. Is it just these draft regulations or is research being done into thermal runaway and how toxic fallout from the vapourisation of heavy metals can fall on to farmland? A big concern in my constituency is that thermal runaway in battery storage at solar sites could poison land through the vapourisation of heavy metals. Is there any research into that safety concern?

[Mary Creagh]

I am not aware of any research, but there is work going on through our circular economy strategy, which we have co-designed with industry. As part of that, we have looked at transport and waste electricals, and I am certain that there are transport experts in those working groups. We have to get to a circular economy, not just for batteries but for tyres, which also have a habit of miraculously catching fire after being collected. We need to consider that as part of our circular economy work, but I am happy to take a note and write further to the right hon. Gentleman on that. It is mostly a matter for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, but as I said, the complexity and location of batteries are changing, and we do not want to end up with contaminants and pollutants.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

I thank the Minister for that answer. That is something I have been pushing on. It is an important aspect of battery storage in a rural constituency, so I very much accept her offer to write to me with any information she may have.

[Mary Creagh]

I will undertake to do that. If I cannot do it myself, I will pass it on to my DESNZ colleagues.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mary Creagh]

I will make a little progress, if I may. The changes will apply directly in Northern Ireland and will phase in over time. They apply in Northern Ireland under the Windsor framework. As an EU regulation, the obligations within it apply directly, without the need for transposition. The draft instrument, in a reserved policy area, is the domestic legislation required to enable effective enforcement of these obligations in Northern Ireland.

Implementing the measures helps Northern Ireland to maintain its dual market access. It does so by establishing a proportionate enforcement, offences and penalties regime in Northern Ireland for the EU regulation. Offences are put in one of three penalty groups: summary-only offences, such as those subject to a fine, which can be unlimited; either-way offences; or imprisonment for up to 12 months and/or an unlimited fine for the most serious indictable-only offences. Offences include failure to keep appropriate due-diligence documentation; failure of a supplier of battery cells and modules to provide documentation to manufacturers; and failure by an importer to comply with certain battery safety-related obligations. Those fall into penalty groups 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

The Office for Product Safety and Standards enforces the existing “placing on the market” requirement across the UK and will act as the market surveillance and enforcement authority for “placing on the market” matters set out in this draft instrument in Northern Ireland. The SI also includes supplementary measures arising from the EU regulation, relating to conformity assessment. That includes a requirement for the NI indication to accompany the CE mark in certain circumstances, making the Secretary of State the designated authority for notified bodies and putting in place an appeals process for decisions made by notified bodies.

The draft SI also consequentially amends the Batteries and Accumulators (Placing on the Market) Regulations 2008 by revoking them in respect of Northern Ireland, so that they now apply only in Great Britain. To be clear, the instrument does not introduce new policy objectives or regulatory standards beyond those arising from the EU batteries regulation. The batteries regulation required the penalty regime to be in place by 18 August 2025. Further parts of the EU regulation remain to be implemented in Northern Ireland, after that 18 August 2025 date. They include changes to waste and to extended producer responsibility requirements. Those matters are not covered here.

I will now respond to the submission noted by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee regarding the impact on the UK internal market and the costs arising from the draft instrument. The UK has had an integrated UK-wide approach to batteries and waste batteries for many years. Let me be clear that we will take any steps necessary to continue to meet the Government’s commitment to protect the UK’s internal market. That is why we will consult in the autumn on an aligned regime in Great Britain that is consistent with the EU’s 2023 batteries regulation. The consultation will be UK-wide and conducted with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland and with the other devolved Governments as a four-nation approach. Such an approach will avoid duplicative administrative burdens and provide a unified framework across the UK and EU for batteries. Crucially, it will also deliver against our environmental objectives.

Battery manufacturing is a highly sophisticated global sector, and major manufacturers are already adjusting to the new standards. A unified approach is what businesses are asking for, so the autumn consultation will seek views not only on the application of the “placing on the market” regulations in Great Britain, but on the outstanding waste and producer responsibility provisions. We believe that pursuing this approach provides the best outcome for the UK.

I welcome the collaborative approach taken in the development of this draft SI, which has drawn constructively on expertise in industry and the relevant Departments. The provisions set out on enforcement in this SI meaningfully strengthen the application of the EU batteries regulation in Northern Ireland, where it has been law since its publication in 2023. By improving compliance in key areas such as battery safety, hazardous substances and environmental performance, I expect positive environmental and human outcomes through the reduced risk of unsafe or environmentally harmful batteries being placed on the market.

I am also reassured by the de minimis assessment undertaken in respect of this draft instrument. Given that the associated costs are minimal, and that the draft instrument introduces no contentious or disproportionate impacts, the approach is both reasonable and appropriate. I am satisfied that the instrument falls within the scope of the parent Act and represents an appropriate use of those powers. For that reason, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

What a peach of a debate! On the one hand, the Conservative party gave us gentle encouragement and asked questions about how the policy has been enforced in the interim. Once again, I was questioned about the previous Government’s inaction and inability to take any steps to bring in this law before they left office. On the other hand, two parliamentarians from the Democratic Unionist party reopened the debates on Brexit—

[Sammy Wilson]

Will the Minister give way? She has just insulted my colleague.

[Mary Creagh]

No, I will not give way; I am replying to the debate.

They reopened the debates on Brexit, which detained this House from 2016 until I left in 2019 and much beyond. When the former leader of the Conservatives said that we should “Get Brexit done” in 2019, little did he know that Brexit would never be done. This issue is the perfect example of why Brexit will never be done and of the difficulties it brought to this Parliament and Northern Ireland, with its unique protected status under the Windsor framework. It demonstrates the difficulties and the bureaucracy faced by every single business and householder trying to do the right thing and stay safe.

We have had a long and abstract debate about laws and who votes for them. This Committee is our chance to scrutinise the law—I feel scrutinised—and our chance to vote. We will vote later.

[Jim Allister]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

Let me tell the hon. and learned Gentleman a little about what Northern Ireland thinks. I am going to make my point, and then I hope we can get into a much longer debate.

Translink in Northern Ireland bans e-batteries, e-bikes and e-scooters from its networks because of the risk of fire. Antrim and Newtownabbey borough council has a “Buy Safe, Be Safe” campaign because of the risks of electric batteries. Waste management organisations all the way across Northern Ireland, including Newtownards, have all made complaints about the proliferating risk of batteries, battery waste and illegal batteries.

I want to talk about a couple of my constituents, Karlo Bogdan and Natasha Johnson-Mall. Karlo was 24 and Natasha was 27 when they died in a fire caused by an unsafe e-battery in my Coventry East constituency. That is not an uncommon occurrence because lithium battery fires spread incredibly quickly, and those two hard-working young people, lost their lives unnecessarily in part because these regulations and protections—which we are bringing in, yes, first in Northern Ireland, but later in our own country—were not in place to protect them from the dodgy salespeople and resellers on Amazon and all the dumping that has happened as a result of the great Brexit deal. I am very happy to give way if the hon. and learned Gentleman wants to come back on any of that.

[Jim Allister]

May I first correct the Minister? I am not a DUP Member, and I am surprised she does not know that. Secondly, she is also wrong to say that we are debating the merits of this law, as we are not. This already is the law in Northern Ireland, courtesy not of this House but of the EU through sections 7 and 8 of the 2020 Act. It already is the law, so all we are discussing now is how far we are going to penalise people if they breach this foreign law. We are not discussing its merits. If the Government wanted to tackle unsafe batteries, they should have done so across the whole United Kingdom, and they have not—they are hiding behind Northern Ireland.

[Mary Creagh]

Let me begin by apologising to the hon. and learned Gentleman. I understand that he is a member of Traditional Unionist Voice. I did know that, but I forgot it in the heat. We are in the process of doing exactly what he is exhorting us to do, which is to make sure that we have a complete internal market across the United Kingdom while also protecting Northern Ireland’s unique protected status under the Windsor framework.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that it is a model. Brexit has not delivered the freedoms it was supposed to deliver. In the end, the e-bikes, e-cars and e-batteries we buy are not made in Great Britain; most are made by Bosch in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. As the hon. and learned Gentleman says, the regulation applies in Northern Ireland, and there is what I would consider a halo effect because most people placing batteries on the market are abiding by it. What we are doing today is beginning a clampdown on rogue merchants who may be competing unfairly and whose products may not meet that new European standard.

I wanted to put my constituents’ deaths on the record, because while we talk about the abstract principles and ideals of subsidiarity and sovereignty, sovereignty was not able to save their lives. My mission is to save lives, not least the lives of waste transfer station staff—the most invisible and neglected sector in our country—who are dealing with batteries on a weekly basis, especially in temperatures such as those we are enduring at the moment.

On interim enforcement, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest asked—it is not on me to defend him from attacks by other Members, but I have some sympathy, because it is a totally reasonable question to ask. The Office for Product Safety and Standards tried to enforce the pre-2023 EU battery regulation on a UK-wide basis, including in Northern Ireland, but of course it does not apply here. The OPSS is not set up as the enforcement authority until this mechanism goes through, so it cannot enforce it. That is the simple answer, and it is why we are here today.

On why we did not introduce the regulations sooner, we brought forward the legislation to support “placing on the market” requirements as soon as was reasonably practicable, taking into account the need for stakeholder engagement. We have consulted stakeholders and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke mentioned, we wrote to all the trade associations and got one reply back.

Most businesses are already doing this because they are placing products on the European Union market, and this is just stuff we are doing. The right hon. Member for East Antrim says the cost is £30,000, but that is the total cost across all those businesses, not for one. It is the cost of a couple of hours of someone’s time to familiarise themselves with the new regulations. It is not the cost for each business, so my understanding is that it does not affect small and medium-sized enterprises in that way—I gently correct him on that.

We engaged with stakeholders, we appointed a market surveillance authority and we did quite a lot of complex policy work on what this means for our existing regulation. We will do a wider review of the existing battery producer responsibility regulations. We hope to bring that in on a GB and UK-wide basis.

On the figure of £35,017, that is across all affected businesses. Another question was, how does this affect the UK internal market? In a limited way—the majority of batteries are manufactured to meet Northern Ireland and EU standards already, whether they are physically placed on the market in Europe, Northern Ireland or GB. That is the halo effect I was talking about—they have raised their standards, and we are passive beneficiaries. Batteries meeting Northern Ireland requirements can be placed on the GB market, so there is no border down the Irish sea, which was of great concern to everyone here. This autumn, we will consult on an aligned regime across the whole UK that is consistent and will provide a unified regulatory framework across the UK and the EU.

The draft regulations do not introduce new policy, nor does it impose any significant new regulatory burdens on businesses. Without them, we would have rules but no means to uphold them, which is the point made by the hon. Member for Epping Forest. That is not an acceptable position to be in, so the instrument provides clarity, certainty and, crucially, enforceability. It equips the enforcement authorities with the powers they need to make sure that batteries placed on the NI market meet required standards.

On the divergence questions, the reality is that most of these batteries are standardised right across the EU. As I said, this is not the end; we are consulting on an aligned regime, but this is the essential first step to ensure that existing “placing on the market” requirements are properly enforced and support compliance with our Windsor framework obligations while broader work continues.

This is a very low-cost and proportionate measure. It did not require an impact assessment, because it was way under the de minimis requirement of a £10 million extra burden on businesses. It does not change the underlying requirements that businesses must meet and it imposes nominal familiarisation costs, so compliant businesses will not see any change in their day-to-day operations.

To come back to the issue of battery safety, we already have some of the strongest consumer product safety protections in the world, requiring that only safe products, including batteries, are placed on the market. These draft regulations help to ensure that unsafe batteries are identified and removed from the market by more effectively enabling enforcement of safety, labelling and performance requirements. Through our Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025, we retain the ability to go further, if needed, to strengthen protections for consumers throughout the UK.

As I said, we are not complacent, and those two young people who lost their lives in Coventry are very much front and centre of my mind. We recognise the real risks to life and limb posed by faulty or non-compliant products. That is why we are taking action across the board with regulators and industry to understand and address the causes of battery-related fires. It does not matter how small the battery is, whether it is a tiny battery in a hearing aid or a vape battery, it must go back to a battery WEEE—waste electrical and electronic equipment—provider. Every store that sells a vape, including the regular high street supermarkets, has a vape take-back scheme.

Batteries, when compressed and baled, become incredibly heated and really dangerous. We could end up taking out our municipal recycling facilities in extremely dangerous and complex fires if we do not dispose of batteries properly, so we have already acted to reduce one major source of battery-related fire risk by banning the use of single-use vapes in 2025, and by supporting their collection and recycling through a dedicated WEEE category. Before we introduced that category, vapes were classed as toys. That is what was done—they were classed as toys under the regulations, which is absolutely incredible.

The early signs are encouraging, because 8 million vapes were sold in 2023-24, but the figures for ’24-25 show that it has already gone down to 6 million, which is accounted for by the regulations coming into effect in June ’25—so that is only a half-year reduction. I am therefore optimistic that sales will come down even lower from that 8 million.

We are working with industry and standards bodies to improve the safety of e-bike and personal electric vehicles through the development of a new publicly available specification. DEFRA has strengthened its capability by bringing in specialist expertise from industry to help ensure that the work to tackle these risks is informed by real-world experience and, crucially, technical knowledge. The draft instrument supports environmental protection, ensuring standards on hazardous substances are upheld—to go back to the question of the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold about batteries, hazardous substances and forever chemicals.

These measures have been developed across Governments and with industry, and concerns have simply not been raised by stakeholders. I hear the comments and concerns of the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim and the right hon. Member for East Antrim, but this is a practical, proportionate and necessary instrument. It will ensure that the law operates as intended and that our obligations are met as Members who were sent to this place to protect the life and limb of the people we represent, while facilitating consumer, business and environmental protection and our obligations under the Windsor framework.

I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Batteries (Placing on the Market) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026.