Online Products: Safety

Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
14. When he will bring forward a consultation on the safety of products that are sold online.

The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)
As the hon. Lady should know, a consultation, which includes proposals to take further steps to address unsafe products sold online, is being finalised, and the consultation paper will be published later this year.

Yvonne Fovargue
Unsuspecting and cash-strapped consumers are being peddled recalled white goods, unsafe devices claiming to save energy, and dangerous toys. Online marketplaces are a hotbed for unsafe products, as has been evidenced time and again by investigations carried out by Electrical Safety First and other organisations. What steps are the Government are taking to address the safety risks that consumers face when shopping on these platforms?

Kwasi Kwarteng
As the hon. Lady will know, the Office for Product Safety and Standards leads a national programme of regulatory action to look at precisely those risks. In 2021, for example, 12,500 products were removed from supply as a direct result of OPSS intervention.

Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
My late constituent Bethany Shipsey was tragically killed after consuming just a small amount of the lethal explosive precursor dinitrophenol—DNP—which is sometimes wrongly marketed as a slimming or bodybuilding product. May I ask my right hon. Friend for a meeting to discuss this tragedy, and how we can take steps to crack down on the overseas suppliers who are selling this deadly substance into the UK online?

Kwasi Kwarteng
I should be happy to meet my hon. Friend, who did excellent work at the Department for Education.

Mr Speaker
Unlike Lord Callanan, who does not meet people.

Sir Edward Leigh is not here, so I call Gavin Newlands.