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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to ensure online marketplaces are preventing unsafe cosmetic products from being listed and sold on their sites.

Cosmetic products available on the UK market must meet strict safety requirements and the Government is committed to ensuring that only safe cosmetic products can be sold in the UK. Furthermore, there must be a Responsible Person established in the UK who is responsible for ensuring the cosmetic product is safe.

The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) is engaged with online marketplaces to ensure that they are playing their part in protecting UK consumers from unsafe products. OPSS works with colleagues in local Trading Standards to take effective enforcement action where products are identified online that do not meet the UK’s product safety requirements and expects online platforms to act quickly to remove them from sale.