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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the General Data Protection Regulation, what steps he is taking to support manufacturers to track appliances sold to customers to enable effective product corrective action.

Manufacturers and distributors are responsible for ensuring they have effective systems in place to prevent risks to consumers if a product that they have placed on the market is found to be unsafe.

On 21^st January I announced the creation of a new Office for Product Safety and Standards to co-ordinate rapid and effective action on national product safety issues. The new Office is supporting the British Standards Institution (BSI) to develop a code of practice on corrective action and recalls which aims to help business to prepare and deal with any product safety issue which may arise.

The code will provide guidance on the use of data, including that it should be handled in accordance with data protection legislation, which would include the General Data Protection Regulation when it comes into force in May 2018. The code will be published shortly.