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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to prevent the sale of unsafe electrical appliances on online marketplaces.

Product safety legislation places obligations on manufacturers, importers and distributors to ensure that consumer products, including electrical goods, are safe before they are placed on the UK market. This applies equally to products sold online and offline.

However, Government recognises that – alongside its benefits – e-commerce has brought significant challenges. This is one of the reasons that the Government is currently reviewing the product safety framework. A Call for Evidence to inform the review ran last year, and the Government Response is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/uk-product-safety-review-call-for-evidence.

A consultation, including proposals to tackle unsafe products sold online, will be published later this year.

Alongside this, the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) leads a national programme of regulatory action to tackle the risks from unsafe and non-compliant goods sold on online marketplaces. In 2021, 12,500 products were removed from supply due to OPSS interventions.