Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Kelly Tolhurst

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s concern in this regard. He is absolutely correct to say that we issued a notice of intent to recall on Whirlpool. It submitted its proposal, which we assessed. We also took advice from an expert panel, comprising an independent QC and chief scientific officers from the Health and Safety Executive, the Home Office and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. We decided not only to accept the proposal, which has been published, but to issue a regulation 28 notice with regard to further information that needs to be shared with the OPSS, so that we can review the recall process.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

8. What plans he has to improve the regulation of second-hand electrical goods online.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)]

I have recently written to online platforms to make clear the priority I place on consumer safety. The hon. Lady will know, after her Westminster Hall debate last week, that the Office for Product Safety and Standards is undertaking specific projects to tackle the risks of second-hand and online sales, including targeting those goods entering the UK via fulfilment houses.

[Carolyn Harris]

I appreciated the Minister’s letter this weekend on the online sales of second-hand recalled tumble dryers. Currently, it is possible to upload details of such products on to online platforms without recall notices, or model or display numbers. Her letter states that she has written to these online platforms, but it fails to say which ones. Will she commit to publishing these letters and any advice she has given, in the interests of clarity?

Electrical Products: Online Sales

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Kelly Tolhurst

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris]

Has the Minister’s Department seen the listings put up overnight, and has it taken action to remove Whirlpool products from online platforms?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

That is a conversation that I did not have with my officials prior to the debate, so I am unable to give a direct answer. However, I have already outlined that the list has been published on the website and has been shared with our enforcement agencies. Where products on the list are being sold by online platforms, our enforcement bodies such as OPSS or trading standards—whoever is available or appropriate to deal with it—should absolutely ensure that they are removed from sale. That is a sensible thing to suggest, and I am sure the hon. Lady would expect me to say nothing less.

We have been running a series of campaigns to raise consumer awareness on keeping safe. This is being done in partnership with the leading consumer bodies, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Electrical Safety First, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, Netmums and the Child Accident Prevention Trust. I was lucky enough to visit the CTSI symposium a couple of weeks ago, where I met many of those organisations. As part of the programme, OPSS and those organisations are planning a specific consumer campaign targeting issues that relate to online sales. I am sure that hon. Members agree that consumers are better able to protect themselves when they have the information and are aware of the risks.

OPSS is working to address the challenges posed by the operation of fulfilment houses. New types of businesses have emerged, and it is recognised that we need to do more online. They provide a range of services to online retailers. This work aims to combat the distribution of unsafe and non-compliant products in the UK supply chain via fulfilment houses. OPSS is working closely with local authorities and trading standards, and is targeting those businesses that choose to place unsafe or non-compliant products on the market without regard for the safety of their customers. This is an ambitious, two-year project. Our early work with national trading standards, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Border Force and local trading standards has already identified targets.

The project is bringing together OPSS, local authorities, HMRC and the Intellectual Property Office to develop a multi-agency approach to tackling the new risks that the new model of sale and delivery poses to UK consumers. OPSS has been working to understand the scope of the challenge facing trading standards from fulfilment houses, and it has developed an up-to-date intelligence profile to ensure that activity in this area is targeted at the appropriate businesses. As I mentioned, the scale of this project is significant, and it has the potential to make a serious impact on the sale of unsafe products online. Projects on this scale bring together local and national bodies, and that is one of the reasons why OPSS was created. We now have the capacity and focus to identify and tackle issues on a national scale.

Although there are many challenges from online sales, a number of which the hon. Lady has outlined, many online sales businesses already have strong relationships with trading standards and work with them to ensure the safety of the consumers to whom they sell. Businesses with primary authority relationships with an individual trading standards department know that they have available to them an expert source of assured and tailored advice on complying with consumer product safety regulations. Working closely with trading standards can help online sellers identify and address at an early stage product safety issues that may arise. E-commerce marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay are uniquely well placed to play an important role in product safety. A significant number of electrical products are sold through these platforms, which have systems to track these products.

The hon. Lady mentioned that Amazon has yet to engage with her and the APPG, but eBay has. Amazon and eBay have strong primary authority relationships in place. In both cases, the partnership has established robust systems to monitor products and sellers. Should non-compliant or unsafe products be identified, there are arrangements in place to ensure that product listings are removed from those sites quickly. I want to make it clear that we are under no illusion about the scale of the task. Those companies are among the largest in the world, and we cannot afford to be complacent about dealing with them.

As this is a global issue, OPSS is encouraging major online retailers to sign up to the product safety pledge that was initiated by the EU Commission. Under the pledge, online retailers commit to taking specific actions on the safety of products that are sold on their platform by third parties. The aim of the scheme is to improve the detection of unsafe products before they are sold to consumers, or as soon as possible afterwards.

I have spoken about the work that OPSS is doing directly to tackle the risks from second-hand and online sales, but it is important to remember that local trading standards are the main enforcers of product safety up and down the country. They play a hugely important role, and OPSS has been working with them to provide the technical and scientific advice, data and intelligence that supports their work every day. OPSS has developed a new product safety database to capture and share information on unsafe goods, so that risks can be identified and action taken as quickly as possible. It is already being rolled out across trading standards, and OPSS provided £500,000 last year to fund the testing of products by trading standards. We have increased that sum to £600,000 for 2019-20.

The hon. Lady asked many questions on issues such as additional resources and changes to the law. She will appreciate that this is the first time such questions have been levelled at me. I am more than happy to attend a meeting of the APPG, as I indicated I would; unfortunately, diaries have meant that I have been unable to. I will happily write to the hon. Lady with further detail on that, or we can have a meeting to discuss the issues—whichever way she prefers to communicate with me.

I want to reiterate that this is “job not done”. This is about how we evolve in a changing market and ensure that importers, manufacturers and marketers place safe products on the market. The onus is on the companies to ensure that they place safe products on the market. We will do all we can to ensure that we continue to monitor products and try to protect consumers as best we can. That is something that I feel very strongly about.

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing forward this important issue. I understand her passion and am desperately sorry about what happened to her constituent. I look forward to constructive conversations with her in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Recall of Tumble Dryers

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Kelly Tolhurst

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and I note his particular interest in this as a result of his past career. He is absolutely right to suggest that we will ensure that large manufacturers such as Whirlpool comply with the regulations if they find that a technical change needs to be made to their products. We expect them to take appropriate action where a risk has been identified. This is indeed a priority for this Government. It has been a priority since I have been in post, and we will continue to ensure that these organisations comply with the law.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

The recall has been far too long coming. As soon as Whirlpool became aware of the problem, it should have acted immediately and recalled every affected machine. As it is, it has sat back and waited years, and consumer safety has been at risk, with the Government finally stepping in last week. The public are rightly terrified of the danger that could be sitting in their homes. People who contact Electrical Safety First, Which? and other consumer bodies are struggling to find assistance because Whirlpool has refused to publish a list of the affected machines. Instead, members of the public have to wade through a series of hidden steps on the Whirlpool website to try to establish whether they have a potential fire hazard in their home. Why has Whirlpool been allowed to get away with that? A list should be readily available, so will the Minister commit to ensuring that Whirlpool publishes one immediately?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

We are following due process, and we are taking action. This has been an ongoing piece of work. When issues with the modification programme were raised, my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), instigated the review, and OPSS has been working since then and has been in continual communication with Whirlpool. It is vital that we follow due process and, whether the organisation involved is small or large, that we ensure that any action is proportionate and correct. Any consumer with concerns about the tumble dryer in their home can get in touch with Whirlpool by entering the serial number and model to check whether their product is affected, and we encourage anyone who is worried about the product in their home to contact Whirlpool immediately.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Kelly Tolhurst

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

2. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the electrical product recall regime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)]

In March, we published the first Government-backed code of practice on recalls, and we have trained almost 300 trading standards professionals on its use. The Office for Product Safety and Standards is working with UK manufacturers and importers to ensure that their recall plans and processes are adequate.

[Carolyn Harris]

Electrical Safety First tells me that the successful product recall rate for electrical goods is abysmally low, so why are the Government not doing more with platforms such as Amazon and eBay, which hold considerable consumer information, to find a solution to this problem?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I understand her particular interest in this area. She is the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on home electrical safety, which I look forward to meeting at the end of the month. With particular regard to online traders, we need to ensure consumer confidence. Amazon and eBay already have primary authority partnerships with trading standards. They are advised by trading standards on the regulations and work with them to make sure that goods are removed as quickly as possible.