Overview
Welcome to the inaugural issue of our UK Briefing: Chemicals, Products & Sustainability Newsletter.
This newsletter provides updates and insights on the evolving landscape of UK law, regulation, and policy. It is aimed at those wishing to stay abreast of new developments and building pan-European compliance and market access strategies.
New arrangements on regulatory alignment for manufactured goods did not make the final texts of the UK-EU Summit in May 2025. However, companies should be aware of major changes to product safety and conformity assessment rules in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), which are just around the corner.
Product Safety Review
In late 2024, the UK Department for Business & Trade published the results of its Product Safety Review, concluding that significant updates were required to the regime. It also concluded that there were limitations on what could be achieved using existing legislative powers. Despite the quality of the EU-derived rules (described as “thousands of pages of well-evidenced, technical law, stretching over 150 statutory instruments, with safety regulations covering everything from toys and cosmetics, through to heavy machinery and pressure equipment”), there was a recognition that those controls cannot stand still. They must be ready to respond to new products and new risks.
The Product Safety Review identifies the following areas where UK government and respondents to the consultation were broadly in agreement:
- A dynamic approach: The need to develop a regime that can respond more readily to emerging hazards/products.
- Safer online shopping: Support for stronger and clearer responsibilities for online marketplaces to proactively prevent and remove unsafe listings from their sites.
- Digital labelling: Introduction of voluntary digital labelling to reduce business costs.
- National leadership: An enhanced leadership and coordination role for the Office for Product Safety Standards (OPSS) as the national regulator, to increase collaboration with various actors in the product safety system and reinforce better ways of working with market surveillance authorities (such as local authority trading standards offices).
- Better use of data: Improved capture of product safety data in a central repository to identify product safety risks, allow targeted intervention and establish a legal data gateway that integrates existing systems and allows sharing of intelligence (e.g., between market surveillance authorities) to enhance compliance and enforcement.
- Clear enforcement powers: Stronger powers to deal with problem products, consolidating enforcement legislation and providing market surveillance authorities with a single set of notices and offences to improve and simplify the enforcement system.
Pragmatic Solutions and Passive Divergence
To place products on the market of the UK or the EU, manufacturers must meet the legal requirements set out in the applicable product regulations. The greater the gap between these two sets of rules, the greater the challenge for businesses with interests in both markets.
UK regulators have been increasingly focused on pragmatic solutions to reduce new burdens on the UK industry caused by Brexit. For example, upon leaving the EU in 2021, the UK initially introduced the United Kingdom Conformity Assessed (UKCA), mirroring the EU requirements under the CE marking (Conformité Européene, or European Conformity marking) system. However, in May 2024, Parliament passed the Product Safety and Metrology etc (Amendment) Regulations 2024, which allow for the use of either the UKCA or CE mark. Since this adjustment allows the free movement of products across the UK Internal Market and the EU market (which includes Northern Ireland), it provides an estimated £640.5 million savings to business over 10 years when compared with a full transition to the UKCA mark.
However, there are already multiple examples of passive divergence (i.e., areas where the EU has taken steps forward in product regulation and the UK has not aligned). Notably, we saw this with the EU’s introduction of the General Product Safety Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/988), which places additional obligations on providers of online marketplaces – now a key policy objective for Great Britain (GB) following the Product Safety Review.
Product Regulation and Metrology Bill
During the immediate post-Brexit period, the UK government relied on transitional powers (provided to facilitate Brexit) to update product legislation. However, this is not a sustainable long-term fix. In fact, transitional powers under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 have already expired, and delegated powers in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 expire on 23 June 2026.
The proposed solution is the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, which is currently working its way through the Parliamentary process. The bill, which consists of 15 clauses and one schedule, makes provision for the marketing and use of products in the UK. It is an “enabling” bill, which means that it confers permanent powers to government ministers (rather than Parliament) to develop the details of the legislation later. If enacted, the bill will provide new delegated powers to ministers to set and update product safety rules. Amongst other significant changes, the bill empowers ministers to introduce product regulations that allow a specific “product requirement” to be treated “as met” if a requirement of relevant EU law is met. New powers also include allowing ministers to set product requirements, which correspond to or are similar to provisions of “relevant EU law”, for the purpose of reducing or mitigating the environmental impact of products (although, notably, not for the purpose of reducing or mitigating health and safety impacts). We await with great interest the final drafting of the bill, and the subsequent secondary legislation containing the details of any new product requirements.
Such unilateral progress by the UK is certainly welcome to limit structural or legislative impediments to further GB-EU alignment. However, it should be noted that prior to the UK-EU Summit, both EU and UK business were calling for further bilateral efforts to reduce technical barriers to trade. In particular, many advocated for a mutual recognition agreement on conformity assessment. Given the UK’s continued membership — through BSI — of the European standardisation organisations of CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, this seems like a plausible objective for future discussions. We are told that there will be further discussions as part of resetting the UK-EU relationship.
Current Trends
In daily practice, product suppliers face significant challenges caused by the introduction of chemical substances into products produced for them outside Europe. These issues are often caused by a knowledge gap with contract manufacturers that are not abreast of current European controls and restrictions. In our experience, non-compliance can occur despite there being thoughtful and well-managed compliance systems in place. While corrective actions (such as product withdrawal and recalls) and enforcement are often managed under the general product safety or specific CE marking regimes, there is a growing trend for product compliance or safety issues to flow from chemical restrictions under the REACH Regulation or (for electrical equipment) the restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) regime. It is essential to understand (as a minimum) the extent and impact of both frameworks and their interaction with product safety law.
REACH and RoHS have always presented complex compliance challenges for suppliers. These challenges are exacerbated by divergence between the GB and EU markets. For example, there are now numerous examples of specific chemistries that have different hazard classifications in the EU and UK. Consequently, REACH restrictions (triggered by classification of hazards) apply differently (particularly in the consumer sector). This may impact risk assessment conclusions when compliance issues are identified.
The moment is ripe for companies to review their product safety and compliance systems on a holistic UK-EU basis. That exercise may identify gaps in those systems or non-compliance for specific products. Our experience is that companies who engage with authorities in a proactive and transparent manner (and are focused on providing a solution) can resolve these situations with a positive outcome. That is true in the UK and across Europe more generally. If you would like to discuss your product compliance needs, do not hesitate to reach out.
