Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment she has made of the number of recalled second hand electrical goods being sold on online marketplaces.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government is committed to protecting consumers from unsafe products. The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) engages regularly with online platforms on a range of issues and its work programme includes a focus on regulating the online marketplace. The Chief Executive of OPSS wrote to online platforms when the recall of washing machines was announced by Whirlpool to ensure affected washing machines and other recalled items were not available on their platforms in order to protect public safety. OPSS is keeping the issue under close scrutiny.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of (a) a central recall database for electrical products and (b) a database of injuries caused by electrical products.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Consumers can find the latest information on product recalls through the Government’s website including a list of recalls of household products since January 2018 - https://productrecall.campaign.gov.uk/. The site also provides information on how UK consumers can register their products with manufacturers in order to receive important safety messages. The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) is continuing to work on improvements to this site, in order to provide consumers with relevant information about product safety issues.
Access to information on products posing a safety risk is a key element of ensuring the safety of the public. OPSS is working with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) on a pilot programme to collect accident data relating to consumer products from hospital Accident and Emergency departments. OPSS will review the benefits of this pilot programme when it has concluded. This is one of a number of workstreams OPSS is leading to improve the information available to consumers on safety issues.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of mandatory registration of electrical products.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
It is important that consumers can access safety information about the products in their homes so they can take appropriate action when necessary. The Government encourages consumers to register their domestic appliances and works with consumer organisations and business groups to promote this. The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) is conducting extensive research with 4,000 consumers to understand their attitudes to product registration and trial different approaches. Officials are developing proposals to increase registration, including mandatory registration for electrical products as part of this work.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps her Department is taking to increase the uptake of product registration of electrical products.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
It is important that consumers can access safety information about the products in their homes so they can take appropriate action when necessary. The Government encourages consumers to register their domestic appliances and works with consumer organisations and business groups to promote this. The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) is conducting extensive research with 4,000 consumers to understand their attitudes to product registration and trial different approaches. Officials are developing proposals to increase registration, including mandatory registration for electrical products as part of this work.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the recall of washing machines by Whirlpool on Tuesday 17 December 2019 is effective.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government is committed to protecting consumers from unsafe products. The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) assessed Whirlpool’s proposal for a recall of affected washing machines and served statutory notices requiring information from Whirlpool. This will enable OPSS to monitor the progress of the recall and assess whether further action is necessary to protect public safety and to hold the company to account.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what contact her Department has had with online marketplaces on the recall of washing machines issued by Whirlpool on Tuesday 17 December 2019.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government is committed to protecting consumers from unsafe products. The Chief Executive of the Office for Product Safety and Standards, wrote to online platforms when the recall was announced by Whirlpool to ensure affected washing machines and other recalled items were not available on their platforms to protect public safety. OPSS is closely monitoring the situation.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the recall of washing machines by Whirlpool on Tuesday 17 December 2019 is being carried out at the request of the Office for Product Safety and Standards.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government is committed to protecting consumers from unsafe products. Legislation is in place to ensure that manufacturers only place safe products on the market and take action where they identify a safety issue with products already on the market.
Therefore Whirlpool is responsible for the safety of the products it supplies and for taking effective action when unsafe products are discovered. The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) is the national regulator for product safety. It assessed the company’s proposal for a recall against regulatory standards and best practice to ensure the proposed action was sufficient to address the risk and provided timely notification of consumers as to the action they need to take.
OPSS is now monitoring the recall closely and will hold the company to account if the recall is not effective.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps she is taking to remove toys that have been proven to be capable of causing serious injury or death to children from being sold to consumers via online marketplaces.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
I consider the issue of online sales to be a priority and recently wrote to major online platforms calling on them to take measures to ensure that dangerous products are not available through online platforms and ask what proactive measures they are taking to this end.
UK legislation provides that manufacturers of toys must ensure that they comply with the essential safety requirements before the toy is placed on the market. Products which pose a serious risk to consumers are notified through the EU Rapid Alert System for dangerous non-food products (or ‘RAPEX system’). All relevant enforcement authorities have powers to take measures against products which do not meet the legal requirements. This can include, where appropriate, withdrawing the product from the market or issuing a recall. The UK has also developed its own product safety database which will be rolled out to all Local Authority Trading Standards services from September. This will give the UK national capability to collate information on unsafe and non-compliant products enabling us to identify new threats and to mount coordinated and rapid responses.
OPSS is undertaking a number of projects aimed at ensuring products sold online, including through marketplaces, meet essential safety and compliance requirements. Given the complex challenges posed by online sales through a variety of business models, OPSS is undertaking a project reviewing the product safety legal framework to ensure that UK consumers remain protected from products sold via online marketplaces.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will publish the letters sent by the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Corporate Responsibility to online platforms on the matter of second hand recalled tumble dryers being sold on their platforms.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
I can confirm that the letters I sent to online platforms on 13th July will be placed in the libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Consumer Protection Partnership in protecting the public from unsafe electrical products.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Consumer Protection Partnership (CPP) was formed in April 2012 to bring together key partners within the consumer landscape to better identify, prioritise and coordinate collective action to tackle the issues causing greatest harm to consumers.
Consumer safety, including risks posed from unsafe electrical products is a priority for the Department and the CPP offers one forum to ensure that stakeholders voices are heard and engaged on this important issue.
The Office for Product Safety and Standards is taking forward work to improve consumer safety by increasing rates of registration for electronic products. We are examining mandatory registration and developing a range of options, underpinned by research and a strong evidence base to understand the obstacles to registration, consumer attitudes and the opportunities of new technology. Research with 4,000 consumers has been undertaken and a field trial to test different approaches is due to start in the Autumn.