Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what steps he is taking to support small businesses in Great Britain with the new General Product Safety Regulation requirements to maintain market access to Northern Ireland.

The updated GPSR largely formalises how businesses are already operating in the UK. Where businesses need to make changes, we expect that they will be adapting anyway to be compliant with the new Regulation to continue trading with the EU.

On 3 December, the Department for Business and Trade’s Office for Product Safety and Standards published guidance for businesses on the application of the Regulation in Northern Ireland, which makes clear that authorities will continue to take a proportionate, risk-based, and intelligence-led approach to regulating the NI market, prioritising unsafe products.

DBT will continue to engage businesses directly to ensure they are familiar with the guidance and that the Government is supporting them to trade freely across the whole of the UK. My Department continues to have regular engagement with DBT on this new Regulation.