CPA Bulletin

20 CPA Bulletin > February 2023 www.cpa.uk.net Technical Back in late 2022, the Government published the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill for which all retained EU law (REUL) will be revoked on 31st December 2023, unless Parliament takes steps to codify it into UK domestic law. This Bill is an ‘enabling Bill’ which allows the revocation or amendment of REUL and remove the special features REUL has within the UK legal systems, which had been retained as part of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The Bill also enables the Government, via Parliament, to amend, repeal or replace REUL and includes a ‘sunset date’ of currently 31st December 2023 - the time all remaining REUL will be repealed if not assimilated into UK law. What this means is that the Bill will potentially be revoking rules with a title ending in the word ‘regulation’ with an estimated 2,500 being affected. This includes many that would be relevant to CPA members such as: • Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) • Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM) • Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) • Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (MHSWR) • Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) • Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) • Working at Height Regulations (WAH) etc. This Bill however does not apply to primary legislation such as the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The Bill sets out options to avoid the automatic ‘sunset date’ on each specific set of regulations. The first option is that Ministers can decide to postpone the repeal, but only as far as June 2026 or as a second option, that Ministers can replace the regulations with new/ amended ones. With the ‘sunset date’ less than 12 months away, the view from health and safety sector is that that each Government department may have limited time to review each piece of REUL within the timeframe in order to ascertain whether remains suitable for the UK and remain on the statute books. The Bill may have potential impact on the UK regulatory framework and is therefore extremely significant to CPA members. We will be approaching Government and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to seek assurance that all appliable regulations will be either be retained or replaced with similar protections, which are well understood and an integral part of many member’s policies and procedures for which changes would add burden to their businesses. The government has produced a REUL dashboard to which identifies all of the affected regulations and can be accessed at https:// public.tableau.com/app/profile/governmentreporting/viz/ UKGovernment-RetainedEULawDashboard/Guidance. UKCA Marking TECHNICAL The Government has announced a delay to the full introduction of the UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) marking requirements and will continue to recognise CE product marking for another two years until the end of 2024. This allowsmanufacturers and importers of plant and equipment to use either the UKCA or continue to use CE markings in Great Britain. The UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) marking is being introduced to identify that products comply with UK product safety regulations. A number of reasons are cited for the delay including emerging difficult economic conditions, high energy prices and other factors. The Government stated that it didn’t want to burden businesses with the requirement to meet the original 31st December 2022 deadline and therefore will continue to recognise CE marking for an additional two years. This will give manufacturers and importers until 31st December 2024 to apply UKCA marking, replacing the current CE marking requirement and allowing CE-marked products to continue to be sold in Great Britain until that time. Manufacturers have been able to use the UKCA mark since 1st January 2021 to demonstrate conformity of their products with any determined product standards in England, Scotland and Wales. This sits alongside newmeasures to reduce the costs of retesting products and labelling. To reduce labelling costs, manufacturers can affix the UKCA marking and include importer information for products from EEA countries on an accompanying document or label until 31st December 2027 and the conformity assessment activities for CE marking undertaken by 31st December 2024 can be used by manufacturers as the basis for the UKCA marking up to 31st December 2027. Under the terms of the Protocol, Northern Ireland will continue to recognise the CE marking for products placed on the market in Northern Ireland. They will however need to use the UKNI marking if they use a UK Conformity Assessment Body to test their products. More information on the UKCA marking introduction and various exemptions can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ukca- marking-conformity-assessment-and-documentation and https:// www.gov.uk/guidance/ukca-marking-roles-and-responsibilities. Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill Update