The Product Regulation and Metrology Bill (the “Bill”) was published on 4 September 2024 and will provide the Secretary of State with wide regulation making powers to replace, amend or update product safety legislation in the UK.

Why is the Bill needed?

The Department for Business and Trade’s impact assessment of the Bill stated that the “UK lacks powers to end recognition or to recognise new and updated EU regulations in GB”.

The Bill aims to ensure that the UK government has the flexibility to adopt EU laws and standards relating to product safety as may be required, but also to diverge from EU legislation where it is beneficial to do so for businesses and consumers.

What does this mean?

It means that the UK will essentially be able to pick and choose whether to harmonise with or diverge from EU rules as the EU product safety regime develops.

It is intended that the Bill will enable the UK to keep pace with technological advances (e.g., artificial intelligence), and address new safety challenges (e.g., the fire risks associated with e-bikes / lithium-ion batteries) as well as enable improvements to compliance to ensure that the responsibilities of those in the supply chain, such as online marketplaces, are clear.

One priority will be ensuring alignment, where appropriate, with updates to the EU’s product safety regime, where the UK is at risk of falling behind, including, in particular, the upcoming General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988 (the “EU GPSR”) which comes into force in December 2024. In broad terms, the EU GPSR aims to modernise the EU general product safety framework and address some of the new challenges posed to product safety by the digitalisation of our economies. This includes addressing concerns regarding the ease with which unsafe products can be sold online.

Alignment with the EU GPSR will likely be welcomed by cross border businesses that place products on both the UK and EU markets, as it will facilitate international trade and avoid the unnecessary burden of maintaining single supply chains across the UK and EU.

There is also scope to update the legal metrology framework, which governs the accuracy of weights and measures for certain goods.

What does the Bill say?

The Bill, which is a framework Bill and is designed to cover the whole of the UK, states that the Secretary of State may by regulations make provision, in relation to the marketing or use of products in the UK, for the purpose of:

• reducing or mitigating risks presented by products
• ensuring that products operate efficiently or effectively
• ensuring that products designed for weighing or measuring operate accurately.

Under the Bill, there is scope for:

• the sharing of information between market surveillance authorities
• new powers to appoint inspectors, powers of entry, search and seizure, market monitoring, product recall, and product enforcement notices
• civil undertakings and a civil sanctions process as an alternative to prosecution
• power to create new offences and widen the scope of existing offences related to product safety.

The Bill is likely to give the Office for Product Safety & Standards (OPSS) greater regulatory powers to carry out enforcement actions against manufacturers, importers, and online marketplaces.

When is this happening?

The substantive content will only become apparent when we start to see the secondary legislation, which is expected to follow next year.

What do I need to do now?

Maintaining a watching brief is one option – we will know more when the Secretary of State exercises the powers granted under the Bill in due course. However, businesses with the resources who want to get ahead of the curve may want to study the changes to the EU product safety regime and undertake a gap analysis in order that the business will be prepared for the likely changes – something that UK businesses selling in the EU should already be doing.