UKCA Marking reminder (UK)

The UKCA mark is a label to be attached to most goods traded in Britain.

On 14 November 2022, the UK government confirmed the EU label (the CE mark) would continue to be accepted in Britain until 1 January 2025.

Traders must be ready to use UKCA marking from 1 January 2025 at the latest, and it should be used where possible prior to this date. The UKCA mark has been available for use since 1 January 2021.

Until 31 December 2027, traders may affix the UKCA mark by means of a label, or similar, to the product, packaging, or documents, as required. But from 1 January 2028, the UKCA mark must be directly affixed to the product.

Conformity assessment activities for CE marking undertaken by 31 December 2024 may to be used by manufacturers as the basis for the UKCA marking, until 31 December 2027.

Northern Ireland – under the terms of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol, Northern Ireland will continue to recognise the CE marking for goods placed on the market in Northern Ireland. They will need to use the UKNI marking if they use a UK Conformity Assessment Body to test their products.

This applies for most goods – here.

Different rules apply for:

• medical devices – here [note the EU has given more time for certain medical devices regulated under EU MDR – here)
• construction products – here
• marine equipment – here
• transportable pressure equipment – here
• rail products – here

And please note the rules for ROHS products – here.

Holiday Entitlement Consultation (Britain)

The UK government is consulting on changes to holiday entitlement for part year and irregular hours workers. The proposal is to amend the Working Time Regulations 1998, which give effect to pre-31 Dec 2020 EU law, to remove the effect of a recent Supreme Court judgment, and in effect to move away from EU law in this respect.

In July 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment on Harpur Trust v Brazel. This case concerned the calculation of holiday pay and entitlement of a permanent part-year worker on a zero-hours contract.

The judgment held that the correct interpretation of the Working Time Regulations 1998 is that holiday entitlement for part-year workers should not be pro-rated so that it is proportionate to the amount of work that they actually perform each year.

Part-year workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of statutory annual leave calculated using a holiday entitlement reference period to determine their average weekly pay, ignoring any weeks in which they did not work. As a result of the judgment, part-year workers are now entitled to a larger holiday entitlement than part-time workers who work the same total number of hours across the year.

The UK government disagrees with this approach, and proposes amending the Working Time Regulations to ensure that holiday entitlement reflect hours worked. The consultation is here.

The consultation closes on 9 March 2023.

UKCA Marking Further Delay (Britain)

On 14th November the BEIS department of the UK Government laid before Parliament a further draft Statutory Instrument “Product Safety and Metrology (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2022. The earlier draft instrument (I reported on by Email Alert a while back) is not proceeded.

The main purposes of this new instrument are to:

(1) extend acceptance of certain products meeting EU requirements and markings on the market in Britain for a further 2 years, until 31 December 2024, and

(2) as previously announced on 20 June 2022 (see my earlier blog post), but with updated timelines –

* provide that where manufacturers, or other relevant persons, have acted under EU conformity assessment procedures by 31 December 2024, that action will be treated as having been taken under the UK conformity assessment procedures until the expiry of the certificate, or until 31 December 2027, whichever is sooner

* extend existing labelling provisions for UKCA marking, importer information and responsible persons’ information until 31 December 2027.

There are different rules for medical devices, construction products, cableways, transportable pressure equipment, unmanned aircraft systems, rail products, cosmetics, and marine equipment.

There are different rules for Northern Ireland.

I will update Cardinal Environment Limited EHS Registers and Checklists. This matter will also be in the next Email Alert.

EU Law Revocation (Britain) UPDATE

The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (I posted about recently) is in Committee stage, and the Public Bill Committee (the relevant Committee) yesterday has asked for submissions to it – here.

You can see from the link, the purpose of the Bill is to sunset (remove from the statute book) certain types of law by end 2023. In particular, the Bill will completely overhaul a body of UK domestic law known as “retained EU law” (REUL). This is a category of law that came into being as a result of the UK exit from the EU. It includes both Retained EU instruments, and certain domestic laws that gain their authority in a particular way.

Note: when the Committee concludes its consideration of the Bill it is no longer able to receive written evidence and it can conclude earlier than the expected deadline of 5.00pm on Tuesday 22 November.

As I have written in the last Email Alert to clients, we will commence listing the laws to be affected shortly, and this list will display on Cardinal Environment Limited EHS Legislation Registers and Checklists from Jan 2023 (earlier drafts will display earlier) and be subject to tracking through 2023.

A very considerable number of laws will be affected.

We expect most affected laws to be replaced with new laws, covering the same obligations. The tracking evident on Legislation Registers and Checklists will identify progress.

We do not expect that obligations will be removed altogether. If a law is removed without a replacement, we expect the obligations to be inserted by amendment into other pre-existing law, and the tracking will identify this.

Nonetheless, this is a complex process.

Net Zero Strategy Court Case (UK)

On 18 July 2022, the High Court handed down a judgment in a case against the UK government on its Net Zero Strategy (NZS). The judgment is here. The summary is here.

The judgment states – (extracts and some sentences shortened) –

The UK responded to the 21st COP Paris Agreement (2015) in two ways. First, section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008 (“CCA 2008”) was amended so that it became the obligation of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to ensure that “the net UK carbon account” for 2050 is at least 100% lower than the baseline in 1990 for CO2 and other GHGs, in substitution for the 80% reduction originally enacted (see the Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019 (SI 2019 No.1056)). That change came into effect on 27 June 2019.

Second, on 12 December 2020 the UK communicated its NDC (National Determined Contributions) to the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) to reduce national GHG emissions by 2030 by at least 68% compared to 1990 levels, replacing an earlier EU based figure of 53% for the same year.

Section 4 of the CCA 2008 imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to set an amount for the net UK carbon account, referred to as a carbon budget, for successive 5 year periods beginning with 2008 to 2012 (“CB1”). Each carbon budget must be set “with a view to meeting” the 2050 target in s.1. The ninth period, CB9, will cover the period 2048-2052 for which 2050 is the middle year. Section 4(1)(b) imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for a budgetary period does not exceed the relevant carbon budget. Thus, the CCA 2008 had established a framework by which the UK may progress towards meeting its 2050 net zero target.

The Secretary of State has set the first 6 carbon budgets. Each has been the subject of affirmative resolution by Parliament. CB6 came into force on 24 June 2021 (The Carbon Budget Order 2021 – SI 2021 No. 750) and sets a carbon budget of 965 Mt CO2e (million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) for the period 2033 – 2037.

The court case was for judicial review but did not challenge the setting of the net zero target in s.1 of the CCA 2008 nor the setting of any carbon budget (including CB6).

Instead, the court case asked if the UK government had complied with s.13 and/or s.14 of the CCA 2008.

Section 13 imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to “prepare such proposals and policies” as he considers will enable the carbon budgets which have been set under the CCA 2008 to be met. The UK government agrees this is a continuing obligation.

Section 14 provides that “as soon as is reasonably practicable” after setting a carbon budget, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report setting out proposals and policies for meeting the current and future “budgetary periods” up to and including that budget. Following the setting of CB6, the Secretary of State laid the NZS before Parliament on 19 October 2021 as a report under s.14 of the CCA 2008.

Re Section 13 – the court concluded –

(1) s.13(1) of the CCA 2008 does not require the Secretary of State to be satisfied that the quantifiable effects of his proposals and policies will enable the whole of the emissions reductions required by the carbon budgets to be met. The obligation in s.13(1) does not have to be satisfied by quantitative analysis alone.

(2) Information on the numerical contribution made by individual policies in the NZS is legally essential to enable the government to discharge its obligation under s.13(1) by considering the all-important issue of risk to delivery. These are matters for the Secretary of State and not simply his officials.

Re Section 14 – the court concluded –

(3) The NZS should have gone below national and sector levels to look at the contributions to emissions reductions made by individual policies (or by interacting policies) where assessed as being quantifiable in order to comply with the language and statutory purposes of s.14 of the CCA 2008.

(4) It is the responsibility of the Secretary of State, not his officials, to lay a report before Parliament under s.14. The adequacy of such a report is a matter for him, acting on the advice of officials and with legally sufficient briefing.

The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a fresh report under section 14 before the end of March 2023.

Hydrogen Strategy (UK)

UPDATE (18th August) : the 121 page UK Hydrogen Strategy is here.

Four consultations are started –

(1) the business model – here,

(2) a NetZero Fund – here,

(3) a UK low carbon hydrogen standard – here,

(4) facilitating a grid conversion hydrogen heating trial – here.

The current intention is that low carbon hydrogen producers seeking government support, through a Net Zero Hydrogen Fund, and/or the Hydrogen Business Model would be required to comply with a UK low carbon hydrogen standard in order to secure support.

The standard could also be developed into a certification scheme.

The design elements of a UK low carbon hydrogen standard are expected to be finalised by early 2022, while work continues on delivery and administration considerations.

The approach in the UK will involve a mix of hydrogen production methods, including large scale gas reforming with carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) (blue hydrogen with CCUS) and electrolytic hydrogen from low carbon electricity (green hydrogen).

Note the following are out of scope for the purpose of developing a UK low carbon hydrogen standard (and are addressed by separate BEIS work streams that are not yet reporting) –

* End use safety / quality standards e.g., regulations for use of hydrogen in transport, or regulations on hydrogen boilers,

* Gas Safety (Management) Regulations and entry standards for blending hydrogen into the gas grid,

* Standards for other (non-hydrogen) decarbonised gases,

* Wider environmental standards and regulations (e.g., water consumption, air quality) although later work on these areas is not excluded. Hydrogen producers will, in any event, need to comply with current and future regulations on air pollutants including nitrogen oxides (NOx),

* Gas quality – e.g., the Wobbe Index.

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The UK government issued this morning a press release – here – signalling its published Hydrogen Strategy which it is consulting on – but (once again as is typical of these press releases) the strategy document itself is not published (even though the press release is written using the past tense that the document is already in the public domain) nor the consultation questions.

I will update this post on the blog itself (that won’t be a second email notification, so check the blog post) when the strategy document is finally available, with a link to that document, and some comments on its content.

Here is the link to government consultations.

Here is the New Scientist take on the strategy – its link to the strategy itself sends to a 404 page not found.

UKCA and UKNI marks (UK)

The European CE mark is being phased out in the UK. Various deadlines apply to the situation where no CE marked good may be imported into the UK market unless it has been re-marked as UKCA.

A special situation exists in Northern Ireland – the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol allows European CE marking to continue to be used in Northern Ireland. The alternative UK mark to be used in Northern Ireland is UKNI, not UKCA.

A vast number of CE marked goods are in regular use in the UK. All businesses and individuals operating in the UK must assess their future requirements for CE marked goods and take steps to ensure their timely delivery before deadlines kick in.

Please check with suppliers and BEIS (the government department) on the current availability of already imported CE marked goods, and the deadline for a particular CE marked good.

Not all local assessment processes are set up, and deadlines may change. Further information is likely – please pay close attention to Email Alerts and Blog posts in the autumn.

[Not all European goods use the CE mark, I posted earlier about consultation underway on the timings for the phaseout of European marked Transportable Pressure Equipment – TPE – European sourced TPE has a different European mark]

Framework for Better Regulation (UK)

The government yesterday initiated a consultation on its plans to reform its Framework for Better Regulation. The consultation is here.

Better Regulation is a principles-led process of evaluating legislation before it’s proposed and enacted, and then after it is enacted. Better Regulation also exists at EU level.

In the UK, (per the explanation in the document) –

Better Regulation is designed to ensure that government regulation is proportionate and is only used where alternative non-regulatory approaches would not achieve the desired policy outcomes. The framework enables ministerial decisions to be based on robust analysis of the costs and benefits of different options, including the direct costs on businesses, and means that decision making is clear and transparent. The framework helps ensure that new burdens are only imposed where there is clear evidence they will generate sufficient benefits for society, and that measures are implemented and enforced in a way that is easier for businesses to deal with.

The revisions propose increasing the outcomes orientation of regulation –

(1) delegating more power and discretion to the UK’s regulatory bodies, removing many of the detailed rules in the existing statutory frameworks to make them less prescriptive (replacing them with outcomes to be achieved), and allowing the regulatory regime to be shaped more by case law.

(2) Parliament should set out only what is prohibited or the outcomes to be achieved, in plain English, and set out any parameters within which regulators would need to operate to meet these outcomes, but then giving regulators appropriate powers and discretion over how to do so, rather than legislation setting out all of the rules that businesses have to comply with in detail.

(3) regulators would still set out some detail in rules and guidance but would have flexibility to change these without having to petition the Government to introduce further legislation. This would give regulators the freedom to regulate based on whether the outcomes set by Parliament are being achieved rather than whether a particular rule has been followed. Where regulators provide for detailed rules or processes, they would also be able to provide for exemptions and waivers to reach the outcomes set out by Parliament in the most sensible way.

The Government wants to identify areas where the envisaged benefits of a move to a less codified, more common law focused approach are likely to be the greatest, and areas where the Government should be more cautious about adopting such an approach.

The government is also seeking responses on its proposals to replace the Precautionary Principle with a Principle of Proportionality. Pages 21 and 22 in the consultation document set this out. This would be a major departure.

Please read the other sections of the document for further questions.

Consultation ends 1st October 2021.

[if the focus changes to a more outcomes-led Regulation in the UK (Britain) in this manner, then we would, in Cardinal Environment, need to start analysing and reporting on case law (i.e. the common law as this document puts it) in this jurisdiction]

Changes to Energy Labels and Ecodesign (UK)

UK guidance changed to confirm that (effective 1st March) EU type re-scaled energy labels would apply throughout the UK, not only in Northern Ireland (via the IRL/NI Protocol). This was in yesterday’s monthly email alert.

The law has still to catch up, but today the BBC confirms (1 March) EU repairability and spare parts obligations will be applied in Britain. They anyway applied in Northern Ireland (Protocol).

The specific product EU Law in this area is in the form of EU Regulations directly applicable in member states (and Northern Ireland via the Protocol).

The BBC link is here.

A consultation was held (closing date November 2020) – here.

Energy labels apply to a list of mainly white household goods, but also computer screens. Ecodesign stipulations apply to a wider list of electric and electronic products.

ARIA is announced (UK)

ARIA is the Advanced Research & Innovation Agency promised in the 2019 manifesto.

The government announcement is here.

Reaction reported by the Science Media Centre is here.

Laboratory News reports here.

The Engineer reports here.