On 2 August 2023, the UK government published its long-awaited proposals for reform of the UK product safety regime. There are 13 wide-ranging proposals, some of which could radically change the UK product safety landscape and/or have a significant impact for stakeholders.     

The UK government has launched a public consultation on the reforms, which is open until 24 October 2023.

Headlines

Key proposals include:

• Mandatory incident reporting.
• A new defined role of ‘online marketplace’ with its own set of specific duties.
• An increase in the level of consumer-facing information to be provided for online listings.
• The introduction of voluntary e-labelling.
• Direct penalty powers for enforcement authorities without needing to bring a prosecution.
• A review of the UK product liability regime.
• Radically, a move away from the existing product safety framework (derived from European Union rules) to a new cross-cutting, hazard-based approach.

Our products team have provided a detailed analysis of the 13 proposals here. 

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