General product safety regulations

The General Product Safety Regulations 2005 further clarify and extend current safety rules for products intended for, or likely to be used by, consumers. Businesses are already obliged to put only safe products on the market, but these new regulations will extend coverage and include items such as professional power tools, nursery goods, clothing and medicines. They apply to all new and most second-hand products sold anywhere within the European Union.

Producers, distributors and retailers must adopt best practice, to avoid risks to customers and ensure a product will remain safe throughout its working life. They must:

* Take appropriate action to make sure that a product will remain safe throughout its working life, under all likely conditions in which it could be used.
* Keep customers informed about potential risks.
* Maintain paperwork to enable them to track product origin and destination.
* Carry out sample testing on products.
* Keep a register of complaints received.
* Give customers relevant product information and any warnings necessary to make sure it is used safely.
* Batch-mark products where appropriate.
* Notify the relevant authorities, such as the local authority or Health and Safety Executive, if they find that a product is unsafe.

For the first time, manufacturers and distributors will also have a legal obligation to inform Trading Standards if they become aware that a product they supply is unsafe. They will then have to work with the authorities in tracing dangerous products and taking them off the market by recalling. If necessary, companies can be required to organise a product recall.

Those who market unsafe products, or fail to respond to Trading Standards, could face a fine of up to £20,000 and up to 12 months in prison.

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