I still have a contact in the Department for Business's agency the OPSS (there are good people everywhere) and they have just told me about the agency's latest wheeze.
Before that, a bit of background:
In 2014 the Department for Business proved the furniture and furnishings fire safety regulations do not work and proposed a new ignition test that would work and at the same time greatly reduce toxic flame retardants.
After getting rid of me, the Department entered a long period of delaying to put the regulations right. One such delay was to go out to consultation in 2016 on exactly the same proposed changes. It then failed to respond to that consultation for three years.
In 2019, the Environmental Audit Committee's final report into toxic chemicals in everyday life agreed with me about the furniture regs and told the Department for Business to put them right, asap.
This caused the Department to finally respond to its 2016 consultation (also recommended by the EAC) but only to say it was scrapping the previous 10 years of research, consultation and (perhaps somewhat conveniently) proof the regs don't work. It commissioned the British Standards Institute to come up with new flammability standards for its promised new furniture regulations.
4 years on and nothing at all has changed. A strong part of the problem is that the OPSS has set up an impossible task: it wants new flammability standards while at the same time insisting that the current requirements are working just fine.
Alongside this impasse the OPSS has been promising for a few years now that it is going to go out to consultation on its new furniture regulations. These won't have any standards to go with them, mind you. Anyway, as a guide to what will be in these new regulations, the OPSS has released its "Essential Safety Requirements" (ESRs). The problem with these is that they are very vague; in effect they just require that upholstered furniture shouldn't catch fire or if it does that it should burn "slowly". But without describing what "slowly" means nor even what is meant by "upholstered furniture".
Clearly, when they release these "regulations" they will be liable to some stiff criticism. Which brings us to the OPSS's latest idea: that they intend to include the new furniture regulations with a lot of other proposals within a wider "product safety review" (an ongoing review that is underpinned by this statement: "The government is committed to ensuring that only safe products can be placed on the market now and in the future" which perhaps indicates that the OPSS does not appreciate irony).
In other words, they intend to bury the details, or lack of them, of the new furniture regs in a whole slew of ideas and schemes for products in general.
Watch this space!
Before that, a bit of background:
In 2014 the Department for Business proved the furniture and furnishings fire safety regulations do not work and proposed a new ignition test that would work and at the same time greatly reduce toxic flame retardants.
After getting rid of me, the Department entered a long period of delaying to put the regulations right. One such delay was to go out to consultation in 2016 on exactly the same proposed changes. It then failed to respond to that consultation for three years.
In 2019, the Environmental Audit Committee's final report into toxic chemicals in everyday life agreed with me about the furniture regs and told the Department for Business to put them right, asap.
This caused the Department to finally respond to its 2016 consultation (also recommended by the EAC) but only to say it was scrapping the previous 10 years of research, consultation and (perhaps somewhat conveniently) proof the regs don't work. It commissioned the British Standards Institute to come up with new flammability standards for its promised new furniture regulations.
4 years on and nothing at all has changed. A strong part of the problem is that the OPSS has set up an impossible task: it wants new flammability standards while at the same time insisting that the current requirements are working just fine.
Alongside this impasse the OPSS has been promising for a few years now that it is going to go out to consultation on its new furniture regulations. These won't have any standards to go with them, mind you. Anyway, as a guide to what will be in these new regulations, the OPSS has released its "Essential Safety Requirements" (ESRs). The problem with these is that they are very vague; in effect they just require that upholstered furniture shouldn't catch fire or if it does that it should burn "slowly". But without describing what "slowly" means nor even what is meant by "upholstered furniture".
Clearly, when they release these "regulations" they will be liable to some stiff criticism. Which brings us to the OPSS's latest idea: that they intend to include the new furniture regulations with a lot of other proposals within a wider "product safety review" (an ongoing review that is underpinned by this statement: "The government is committed to ensuring that only safe products can be placed on the market now and in the future" which perhaps indicates that the OPSS does not appreciate irony).
In other words, they intend to bury the details, or lack of them, of the new furniture regs in a whole slew of ideas and schemes for products in general.
Watch this space!
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