Office for Product Safety and Standards

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am pleased to take part in a debate with so much consensus, which does not happen often. I thank the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) who has done a power of work on the issue and continues to champion the cause, as we all recognise. I thank the consumer organisation Which? for providing an excellent briefing, as has Electrical Safety First.

The Office for Product Safety and Standards is welcome, of course, as we have heard from a number of Members. As the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) pointed out, it is important as a way of strengthening our product safety regime and making sure that customers are aware of and, importantly, can have confidence in the availability of an effective system, should products need repair or replacement. However, caution is required about the impact. In its report the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee regretted the Government’s limited response, and the lack of urgency about acting on recommendations to address product safety issues. It found that reductions in funding for local trading standards and national trading bodies were having the negative effect that might be expected on the adequacy of the existing product safety system.

That finding, combined with the fragmentation of the current system, makes it difficult for consumers to have confidence in the consistent enforcement of the required standards across the UK. We have heard today of responses from the manufacturer Whirlpool to a defect in its tumble dryers, which clearly show the limitations of the existing system. Indeed, as a direct result of its slow response, 1 million homes still contain potentially dangerous appliances, as set out by the hon. Members for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) and for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), who explained the dangers that have dogged consumers who have those machines and has, of course, been a champion in the area in question.

There is no doubt that progress in improving the safety of electrical goods has been too slow. I suspect that the Minister would probably agree with that, in his quieter moments. That is despite a widely supported set of recommendations, made in Lynn Faulds Wood’s independent review, published two years ago. That review, which had a national product safety agency as its central recommendation, concluded that that was needed as part of a long-overdue overhaul of the entire system. All hon. Members welcome the new Office for Product Safety and Standards, but as we have heard, it must have sufficient scope and resources to deal with issues of product safety across the UK.

[Stephen Kerr]

Despite what I am about to say, I do not wish to introduce a tone of discord, but I was distressed last week when, in the Scottish Parliament, our First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, answered a question from Miles Briggs MSP regarding genuine concerns about the safety of babies being permitted to sleep in baby boxes. The response he received did not indicate to me that the First Minister shares any kind of genuine feeling for the fact that people are sincerely concerned about product safety and baby boxes.

[Patricia Gibson]

That question is a bit leftfield, but I am happy to take it head on.

[Stephen Kerr]

It is about product safety.

[Patricia Gibson]

If the hon. Gentleman googles the Scottish Cot Death Trust, he will find that it has no concerns about baby boxes. However, if cardboard is set alight it does catch fire—there is a revelation for the hon. Gentleman—and the trick is not to light matches around cardboard. That is probably the safest thing for a baby.

As I was saying, the Office for Product Safety and Standards must be given sufficient scope and resources to deal with issues of product safety. It must be independent and have real teeth to protect consumers and prevent dangerous products from doing them harm. The Minister will be interested to hear that the consumer organisation Which? has expressed concern and disappointment that the full overhaul and fundamental reform needed to stop unsafe goods from reaching or remaining in our homes does not appear to be on the table. Disappointingly, it seems that the new office has not engaged with consumer organisations such as Which?, which I am sure the Minister would agree has some standing and calibre. I wonder why that is, and how consumers would view that lack of engagement. What does it mean when an organisation of such status cannot get the new office to engage with it? Perhaps that is something the Minister could unblock.

It seems a missed opportunity that the Office for Product Safety and Standards will apparently not address the systematic weaknesses in the existing enforcement framework, as set out by Which?, and it seems that there is no action plan for the new office—Which? has expended considerable effort in trying to elicit such a plan, but without success. This matter is fairly straight- forward because we all know about the ongoing failures in the product safety system, and recent product safety issues have brought into even greater focus questions about the adequacy of the current regulatory and enforcement system in the UK. There are concerns about a lack of effective co-ordination and direction in the new office, and if local authorities have no regulatory enforcement staffing resource, that might be a big problem. We know how under pressure trading standards officers are locally, and their role is extremely important for safety in our communities.

The OPSS must also consider product recall as part of its strategy—as the hon. Members for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) and for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) pointed out, product recall has an average success rate of only 20%, and potentially, millions of unsafe products remain in unsuspecting homes. It must also consider online retail, as that must be held to the legal standards that apply to other forms of retail shopping and product safety—that point was also raised by the hon. Members for Makerfield and for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney.

Counterfeit goods are a huge problem, and we need a way forward to counter that issue. As the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn pointed out, data collection and sharing for product safety is fragmented and incomplete, and we need a true picture of the scale of the problem of unsafe goods. An injury database could be used to help collect intelligence and quickly identify dangerous products, and that would be a positive step forward.

We have the opportunity to address current weaknesses in the system and make sure that it is fit for purpose in the potentially more diverse trading environment that the UK will be part of in years to come—that point was set out by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy). We have the opportunity to introduce a new national independent regime for product safety to ensure effective enforcement, market surveillance, and appropriate standards for goods. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reminded us, getting product safety wrong will, and indeed has, cost lives.

The post-Brexit world raises challenges, and we cannot have a situation where the UK diverges significantly from the rest of the EU, as that could only be to the detriment of consumers—I hope the Minister will reassure us on that point. We all agree that the new office is welcome, but we are concerned to ensure that it has the power, resource and strategic direction to help it achieve what we all want, which is a safe environment for our consumers who buy products in good faith and have a right to expect that they are safe.