LoginAnalysis: Out With the Old
The Government’s agenda for sweeping legislative and regulatory reform has been 14 years in the making. But what will it mean for already over-stretched Trading Standards services?
Helen Nugent, Freelance Contributor
Posted 13 January 2025 | JoTS Online
Content Tags: Analysis|Legal and Policy|National
A change of government can have seismic implications for a country. This is particularly true when one party has been in power for a considerable amount of time. So, when Labour wrested control from the Conservatives after 14 years, it was reasonable to expect that deep-rooted change would soon be afoot.
Before the General Election took place in July 2024, many pieces of legislation were working their way through parliament, and under the new government they are getting ever closer to being passed into law. What do they mean for Trading Standards? Let’s take a closer look.
We want to make sure there’s a consultation... It can’t be left in the hands of Ministers. They’re not close enough to the issues
Product Regulation and Metrology Bill
Unveiled on 4 September 2024, the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill (PRMB) follows a 2023 consultation by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) on proposed reforms to the UK’s post-Brexit product safety framework.
Cognisant of the fact that the nature of products and the way that people buy them have altered significantly in recent years, the Bill is intended to address these developments, not least the massively increased volume of online sales. The Bill represents a sea change in the UK’s perspective on product safety and when enacted (possibly before Spring 2025), it will have a significant impact on businesses and consumers.
CTSI has long been pushing for a robust and modernised product safety system, most recently in its ‘Mind the Gap Between the Chain and the Platform’ policy report.
Christine Heemskerk is CTSI joint Lead Officer for Product Safety. As she explains, the PRMB is a mechanism that will enable the Government to introduce a number of regulations to the UK’s product safety and compliance framework.
“In the Bill, they’re talking about bringing online marketplaces into line. But we don’t know how detailed that will be because, currently, online marketplaces are totally unregulated. They just rely on their third parties, and usually these third parties are based abroad. When something goes wrong, no one is responsible because the online marketplace is not responsible under our current legislation. Obviously, if the third-party seller is based in China, it’s very difficult to get them to do anything.
“It’s the same with fulfilment houses, which are not dissimilar to online marketplaces. They just store items and then they send out on demand. Again, they’re not responsible for anything that’s in their warehouses.”
According to the consumer group Which?, 95% of UK consumers have made purchases through online marketplaces at least once in the past two years, with around 23.4 million UK consumers making monthly transactions. Meanwhile, OPSS research found that a staggering 81% of products available through online marketplaces have failed safety tests.
Heemskerk is keen that the Government ensures online marketplaces and fulfilment houses are forced to have responsibility for products where there is no UK presence.
“If the third party is based in the UK, it’s not a problem because you can tackle them. But where the third party is not based in the UK, there is just no responsibility for unsafe products.”
CTSI is concerned that, when it comes to buying products from online marketplaces, UK law has stood still and thereby created a dangerous blind spot that allows unsafe products to flood in.
Kerry Nicol, External Affairs Manager at CTSI, says that the Institute welcomes the Bill, which has been a long time coming. “Product safety, especially with online marketplaces and third-party sellers, has been a wild west,” she believes.
“We’ve had some wariness around the scrutiny of the Bill. In the Bill, it talks about Ministers being able to make decisions on secondary legislation. That’s all well and good, but we want to make sure there’s a consultation process that goes with that where they’re talking to key individuals and partner organisations. That’s really, really important. It can’t be left in the hands of Ministers. They’re not close enough to the issues.”
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
While product safety is crucially important, it’s perhaps the Tobacco and Vapes Bill that has received the lion’s share of press attention. This piece of legislation has been promoted as a landmark step in creating a smoke-free UK. It aims to achieve this by gradually phasing out the sale of tobacco products across the country, making it an offence to sell tobacco products, herbal smoking products and cigarette papers to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009. The Government anticipates that children born on or after this date will never be legally sold tobacco products, breaking the cycle of addiction and disadvantage.
Introduced to parliament on 5 November 2024, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill has far-reaching implications for Trading Standards. While the profession has welcomed the Bill and its various proposals, it has emphasised that the enforcement of various new measures will need to be enabled by proper resourcing of local Trading Standards.
As for the sale of vapes, on 24 October new legislation to ban the sale of single-use vapes (from 1 June 2025) was
laid before parliament. This will also be an enforcement responsibility for Trading Standards.
Kate Pike is joint Lead Officer for Vaping for CTSI. She says: “We will have more responsibility to deal with vapes that are illegal under this piece of legislation. But, to be honest, we’re already seeing products which comply being introduced. This is such an innovative marketplace. They are so fast-moving, there are already lots of products coming out which comply with that ban.”
She adds: “But the legitimate market and the legitimate businesses will need some support. So CTSI will be working hard to try and ensure that people understand the responsibilities and what products they should be looking for. And CTSI will be working really closely with OPSS, who are responsible for the disposal schemes, so that people can ensure that these products are recycled safely and effectively.”
Looking to the future, new laws concerning tobacco products won’t come into force for a few years, meaning that Trading Standards will have time to educate businesses. But, as Pike says: “It’s really important that funding is built in to enable that to happen, that businesses really understand what their responsibilities are. In many ways, it should be more straightforward for them going forward.”
We need to make sure that we’re doing a lot of consumer education to make sure that people are using the best traders
Renters’ Rights Bill
Another key piece of consumer protection legislation, the Renters’ Rights Bill was introduced to parliament on 11 September 2024. Its aim is to deliver the Government’s manifesto commitment of transforming the experience of private renting, including ending Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions. Among the measures in the Bill is the strengthening of tenants’ protections, including new rights to challenge rent increases and to request
to keep a pet.
In England alone, there are 11 million private renters and 2.3 million landlords. Some of the statistics surrounding this sector are alarming. Consider this: according to the national news
outlet ‘the i’, almost one in five low-income households receiving benefits have reported falling behind on rental payments.
Alison Farrar is CTSI’s joint Lead Officer for Property and Lettings. Regarding the new legislation, one of her main concerns centres on a Decent Homes Standard.
“What they’re proposing is that every property in the private rented sector will be inspected, probably by environmental health or housing teams, and that they will need to be brought up to a Decent Homes Standard. There will be consultation and a lot of work going on around how that is done. My concern, from a Trading Standards’ point of view, is the traders that will need to do this work.
“This is an opportunity for us at Trading Standards to set up our trusted trader Buy With Confidence schemes or whatever other schemes we have. There will be a need for the traders to do all the kind of work to bring these properties up to that Decent Homes Standard. But it could also provide an opportunity for rogue traders.”
In towns and cities where demand for traders is already high, particularly during the summer months when student digs are repaired and revamped, new rules governing rental properties could leave landlords, as well as ordinary householders, struggling to find
specialist workmen.
Farrar says: “We need to make sure that we’re doing a lot of consumer education to make sure that people are using the best traders, and that there isn’t a window for these rogue traders.”
Farrar also points to the issue of discerning whether a landlord is a business or a consumer. “There needs to be a discussion about this because we all know that legislation crosses over a bit. We will need some clarity on whether these landlords are consumers.”
As for no-fault evictions, Farrar says that CTSI is encouraged that elements of the new Bill improve upon its former incarnation, including a proposal that a landlord can’t re-let the property for 12 months rather than three months.
Regarding the Bill coming into law, the ambition within parliament is early Spring, but there’s an acknowledgment that some elements may take longer to resolve.
We need to make sure that we’re doing a lot of consumer education to make sure that people are using the best traders
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
As for the forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the Government claims that it will “unleash the biggest building boom in half a century”. Introduced in the King’s Speech back in July 2024, this new legislative move aims to accelerate the development of infrastructure and the construction of 1.5 million new homes.
The Bill, slated for introduction early in 2025, seeks to streamline the planning system, including reforming compulsory purchase rules in order to unlock more land for development, modernise planning committees and boost capacity in local planning authorities.
At the beginning of December 2024, Ministers reiterated the pledge to deliver more homes and announced that planning decisions on at least 150 major infrastructure projects would be taken during the lifetime of this parliament.
Tim Day, joint Lead Officer for Doorstep Crime, Scams and Consumer Vulnerability for CTSI, sounds a note of caution about the impact of the Bill when it finally becomes law. “If we’re going to speed up the planning process and we’re going to do more building, then obviously we need to see a concomitant increase in the amount of tradespeople available to do it. And it’s not just about a lack of those tradespeople, it’s about also being aware that fraud is such a big thing, and so professionalised in its nature, that there will be people who are looking at this as an opportunity already. So, unless that is factored in and checks are built into the process, then it’s going to be an issue.
“It’s one of the reasons that I’ve been so keen on putting forward a registration and licensing scheme for the trades, so that we know who they are, we know where they’re based, and we can have some sort of audit situation going on before they get on schemes such as this.”
At present, there is no licensing scheme in place covering traders in the construction sector – and little prospect of one. Given the Government is intent on speeding up the planning process, there are concerns about the potential for mis-selling of new homes if requisite oversights are not in place or aren’t able to be enforced properly.
Day says: “The imbalance of power between the consumer and the trade they’re dealing with is enormous, and it’s amplified by the amounts of money involved and the timescales when everyone wants it done quickly. It’s a hugely stressful time during a transaction that consumers aren’t experts in, but in which they have a huge stake.”
When it comes to consumers choosing a trader, Day says that matters are complicated by the fact that various trade body and professional membership schemes have different membership criteria and different checks, vetting and auditing in place.
“The landscape for the consumer is really, really difficult… the marketplace is such that you can do everything that you’re supposed to do, and expected to do, and still be at risk [of hiring a rogue trader].”
He adds: “I think that regulation is so important, and I think that a licensing scheme for the construction industry, for the trades, is so important because you could root out fraud at the outset. Consumers are not in a position to identify it, so something needs to happen here.”
It also seems that the issue of rogue traders was exacerbated by Covid.
Day says: “Because rogue traders couldn’t go out cold-calling during the pandemic, there was this migration onto these approved trader platforms. And that makes everybody vulnerable. When younger people need something doing, they go online to these schemes and call somebody up. The difficulty you have there is that the potential victim has already bought into the idea that they need something doing… because they’ve had reason to call someone out and, as a consumer, are convinced that the work needs doing. That has meant
there’s another whole demographic of potential victims.”
If we’re going to speed up the planning process… then obviously we need to see a concomitant increase in the amount of tradespeople
Resources and implementation
It’s clear that the UK’s legislative agenda is jam-packed. But how will Trading Standards deal with all these new laws that require more work?
Over the past decade, spending on Trading Standards has been slashed by more than 50%. During the same period, staffing levels have declined by between 30% and 50%. Many local authorities no longer have sufficient resources to enforce all the consumer protection legislation for which they are responsible.
In order to build back Trading Standards, CTSI has called for a continuing investment which would create 2,000 more Trading Standards posts, including 300 apprenticeship places across the UK. CTSI also wants phased, additional ring-fenced investment in Trading Standards services, rising to £100m after four years.
So far, however, the Labour Government has been silent on how it will pay for an increased enforcement burden on Trading Standards. With any piece of legislation, it’s only as successful as the enforcement surrounding it. Within the profession, it is generally accepted that Trading Standards is at a breaking point.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government says: “We recognise the challenges that local authorities are facing as demand increases for critical services. This is why we announced £1.3bn of new grant funding in 2025/26 for councils to deliver core services.”
Nicol says: “When there’s an emergency, who does the Government call? It’s Trading Standards Officers who step in to save the day. They’re always the ones who give that bit extra. They find those extra resources and that bit more capacity to carry out something when it’s needed the most.
“But we’re at the point where there is nothing left. So, Government needs to listen seriously to what we’re saying.”
New laws at a glance
Product Regulation and Metrology Bill This will address the changing ways in which goods are bought and sold, particularly focusing on the safety and compliance of products available through online marketplaces. Details of the Metrology aspects of the Bill remain scant, but it is hoped it will mean improved clarity and fairness for consumers buying goods online and elsewhere.
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act Examined in detail here, this landmark legislation will tighten controls on businesses selling online, as well as bolstering enforcement powers with new tools such as Online Interface Orders.
Tobacco and Vapes Bill The legal age of purchase will rise each year, meaning that anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 will never legally be able to buy tobacco products. New enforcement powers will mean the introduction of on-the-spot fines of £200 for retailers found to be breaking age-restricted sales laws, and there will be a new licensing scheme for retailers that sell tobacco, vaping and nicotine products in England.
Single-use vapes ban From June 2025, it will be illegal to sell single-use vapes in England under a ban being introduced by DEFRA on environmental grounds.
Planning and Infrastructure Bill A flagship plan to ‘streamline’ and speed up planning measures to get more housing and associated infrastructure built, including the ambitious target of building 1.5 million new homes over the course of the parliament.
PLEASE NOTE: This content originally appeared on our standalone Journal of Trading Standards website (www.journaloftradingstandards.co.uk), which we are gradually migrating over to the Journal's new home on the CTSI website. Please bear with us while we complete this process. This will not affect the production of our Print Edition.
Share this Article: X|LinkedIn|Facebook
Content Tags: Analysis|Legal and Policy|National
