By the slimmest of margins, the new Statutory Instrument covering many consumer product safety regulations was passed by delegated committee on March 12th. The The Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (still draft on legislation.gov.uk) updates several pieces of regulation in the event of a no deal brexit.
The regulations updated include; cosmetics, toys, EMC and General product safety. The main aim is to keep the product regulations the same and update to remove references to EU information. For the most part this has been done successfully but there have undoubtedly been some errors; for example my colleagues at the British Toy and Hobby Association tell me the Toy Safety Regulations do not include the latest lower limit values for some chemicals. I imagine such detail has been omitted throughout.
The government have published quite a comprehensive guide to the changes, here. In this document they have pointed out some "key facts", which include:
Parliament has only altered those legal provisions in UK regulations and the EU law now incorporated into UK law that would not work when the UK leaves the EU without changes. This will create a functioning regulated UK market.
The safety and other technical requirements have not changed.
Goods lawfully placed on the EU market before the UK leaves the EU can continue to circulate in the UK
Lawfully CE marked products will continue to be accepted by the UK for what is intended to be a time limited period (no detail on the time)
The guidance remains the same as I gave last month. Again the regulations are lacking detail on how the CE mark will be accepted for a time limited period but the government have made their intentions clear and I'm sure enforcement would show discretion in this area.
So it seems as if we are finally here and this is the future of UK regulation. This could all change again in the next few days but at least there has been some preparation by BEIS and OPPS so some credit should go to them.