Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to BEIS transparency data: spending over £500, published on 13 January, to which companies did his Department authorise payments of £41,833 to anonymised retailers to support market surveillance activities between July and August 2021.

The Office for Product Safety and Standards is a Market Surveillance Authority, based within BEIS, that makes test purchases for goods as part of its enforcement activities. Within the legislation there are different obligations for the different organisations in the supply chain. Whilst these purchases are from retailers rather than manufacturers these retailers could potentially play a role in proceedings if an investigation arose. Making this commercially sensitive information public could compromise a future investigation.