Electronic Commerce: Safety

(asked on 19th February 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans the Government has for protection of protect consumers from the sale of unsafe goods on social media marketplaces.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 1st March 2021

The Government is committed to ensuring that only safe electrical goods can be sold in the UK. All distributors have a duty to act with due care to ensure products they are selling are safe, this includes online retailers.

The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) proactively engages with major online marketplaces to ensure that they are playing their part in protecting UK consumers from unsafe products. The OPSS have recently taken action to ensure that a number of non-compliant products being sold by overseas 3rd party sellers have been removed from sale, including electrical appliances.

In order to ensure that the UK’s Product Safety framework is flexible and fit for the future, the OPSS is conducting a review. The review will ensure we have a framework that delivers safety for consumers while supporting businesses to innovate and grow and will consider the impact on product safety of new business models, including e-commerce and social media marketplaces.

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