Legislation Enforcement

“Regulation without enforcement is tantamount to NO regulation”

The above statement was made at the April 2017 NCF Consumer Congress The Best of Brexit for Consumers (link to report) and was the subject of a further NCF Consumer Congress in December of the same year entitled Brexit: Transposition of Laws – What’s the point if Enforcement is weak? (Link to report) In workshops held by BEIS, Office of Product Safety and Standards in May 2021 many other voices have raised the need for more effective enforcement of consumer legislation.

Consumers are at serious risk unless the authorities provide effective market surveillance and enforcement of the regulations that have been enacted to protect them from harm. Weak enforcement results in unsafe products and services being placed on the market. Even well-intentioned companies can slide into bad habits by not checking carefully enough the safety of their products and services, before marketing them if they see little consequence from failing to demonstrate due diligence.

We support the authorities’ efforts to inform and advise businesses to help them meet regulations, especially smaller companies. However, enforcement activities must be separated from advisory work to avoid conflict of interest should enforcement be necessary.

The NCF has established an Enforcement Working Group under the chairmanship of Jackie Minor.

The group includes a wide range of interests and has provided submissions to government consultations.

The group has also made proposals for the revision of the Regulators’ Code 2014 – click here to download the proposals.