Consumer Safety Act 1978

1 Safety regulations in respect of goods

(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations containing such provision authorised by subsections (2) and (3) of this section as the Secretary of State considers appropriate for the purpose of securing that goods are safe or that appropriate information is provided and inappropriate information is not provided in respect of goods; and regulations in pursuance of this subsection are hereafter in this Act referred to as " safety regulations ".

(2) Safety regulations may contain provision—

(a) with respect to the composition or contents, design, construction, finish or packing of goods or with respect to other matters relating to goods ;

(b) for requiring goods to conform to a particular standard or to be approved or of a kind approved by a particular person and for requiring information to be given, and determining the manner in which it is to be given, for the purpose of indicating that the goods conform to that standard or are so approved or of such a kind;

(c) with respect to standards for goods (which may be standards set out in the regulations or standards or parts of standards of which particulars have been published by any person in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) and with respect to the approval by the Secretary of State from time to time, for any purpose of the regulations, of standards or parts of standards of which particulars have been so published;

(d) with respect to the giving, refusal, alteration and cancellation of approvals for goods or kinds of goods, with respect to the conditions and alteration of the conditions which may be attached to and the fees which may be charged for such approvals and with respect to appeals against refusals, alterations and cancellations of such approvals and against the conditions and alteration of conditions of such approvals ;

(e) with respect to the testing or inspection of goods, for determining the manner in which and person by whom any test or inspection required by the regulations is to be carried out and for determining the standards to be applied in carrying out such a test or inspection;

(f) with respect to the ways of dealing with goods of which some or all do not satisfy a test prescribed by the regulations or a standard connected with a procedure so prescribed;

(g) for requiring a warning or instructions or other information relating to goods to be marked on or to accompany the goods or to be given in some other manner in connection with the goods, and for securing that inappropriate information is not given in respect of goods either by means of misleading marks or otherwise ;

(h) for prohibiting persons from supplying, or from offering to supply, agreeing to supply, exposing for supply or possessing for supply, goods which the Secretary of State considers are not safe and goods in respect of which requirements of the regulations are not satisfied ;

(i) for prohibiting persons from supplying, or from offering to supply, agreeing to supply, exposing for supply or possessing for supply, goods which are designed to be used as component parts of other goods and which would if so used cause the other goods to contravene requirements of the regulations.

(3) Safety regulations may—

(a) make different provision for different circumstances or provision relating only to specified circumstances ;

(b) provide for exemptions from any provision of the regulations;

(c) contain such incidental and supplemental provisions as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.

(4) Where the Secretary of State proposes to make safety regulations it shall be his duty before he makes them to consult such organisations as appear to him to be representative of interests substantially affected by the proposal and such other persons as he considers appropriate and, in the case of proposed regulations relating to goods suitable for use at work, to consult the Health and Safety Commission.

2 Offences against the safety regulations

(1) Where safety regulations prohibit a person from supplying or offering or agreeing to supply goods or from exposing or possessing goods for supply, then, subject to the following provisions of this section, the person shall be guilty of an offence if he contravenes the prohibition.

(2) Where safety regulations require a person who makes or processes goods in the course of carrying on a business—

(a) to carry out a particular test or use a particular procedure in connection with the making or processing of the goods with a view to ascertaining whether the goods satisfy other requirements of the regulations; or

(b) to deal or not to deal in a particular way with a quantity of the goods of which the whole or part does not satisfy the test or does not satisfy standards connected with the procedure,

then, subject to the following provisions of this section, the person shall be guilty of an offence if he does not comply with the requirement.

(3) If a person contravenes a provision of safety regulations which prohibits the provision, by means of a mark or otherwise, of information of a particular kind in connection with goods, then, subject to the following provisions of this section, he shall be guilty of an offence.

(4) A person who commits an offence in pursuance of the preceding provisions of this section (hereafter in this section referred to as " a relevant offence ") shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months and a fine of an amount not exceeding £1,000.

(5) Where the commission of a relevant offence by any person is due to the act or default of some other person, the other person shall be guilty of the offence and may be charged with and convicted of it whether or not proceedings are taken against the first-mentioned person.

(6) It shall be a defence to a charge of committing a relevant offence to prove that the accused took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence; but if in any case the defence provided by this subsection involves an allegation that the commission of the offence was due to the act or default of another person or due to reliance on information supplied by another person, the person charged shall not, without the leave of the court, be entitled to rely on the defence unless, within a period ending seven clear days before the hearing, he has served on the prosecutor a notice giving such information identifying or assisting in the identification of the other person as was then in his possession.

(7) Safety regulations may contain provision—

(a) for requiring persons on whom a duty is imposed by virtue of section 5 of this Act to have regard, in performing the duty so far as it relates to a provision of safety regulations, to matters specified in a direction issued by the Secretary of State with respect to that provision;

(b) for securing that a person shall not be guilty of an offence by virtue of subsection (1) of this section unless it is proved that the goods in question do not conform to a particular standard ;

(c) for securing that proceedings for a relevant offence are not begun in England or Wales except by or with the consent of the Secretary of State or the Director of Public Prosecutions;

(d) except in relation to Scotland, for enabling a magistrates' court to try an information in respect of a relevant offence if the information was laid within twelve months from the time when the offence was committed and, in relation to Scotland, for enabling summary proceedings for a relevant offence to be begun at any time within twelve months from the time when the offence was committed;

and it is hereby declared that subsection (3) of the preceding section applies to safety regulations made by virtue of this subsection.

(8) Safety regulations shall not provide for a contravention of the regulations to be an offence.

3 Orders and notices to prohibit supply of goods or give warning of danger from goods

(1) The Secretary of State may—

(a) make orders (hereafter in this Act referred to as " prohibition orders") prohibiting persons from supplying, or from offering to supply, agreeing to supply, exposing for supply or possessing for supply—

(i) any goods which the Secretary of State considers are not safe and which are described in the orders, and

(ii) any goods which are designed to be used as component parts of other goods and which would if so used cause the other goods to be goods described in the orders in pursuance of sub-paragraph (i) above;

(b) serve on any person a notice (hereafter in this Act referred to as a " prohibition notice ") prohibiting the person, except with the consent of the Secretary of State and in accordance with the conditions (if any) on which the consent is given, from supplying, or from offering to supply, agreeing to supply, exposing for supply or possessing for supply, any goods which the Secretary of State considers are not safe and which are described in the notice ;

(c) serve on any person a notice (hereafter in this Act referred to as a " notice to warn ") requiring the person to publish, in a form and manner and on occasions specified in the notice and at his own expense, a warning about any goods so specified which the Secretary of State considers are not safe and which the person supplies or has supplied.

(2) Part I of Schedule 1 to this Act shall have effect with respect to prohibition orders, Part II of that Schedule shall have effect with respect to prohibition notices and Part III of that Schedule shall have effect with respect to notices to warn; and subsection (3) of section 1 of this Act shall apply to prohibition orders as it applies to safety regulations.

(3) A person who contravenes a prohibition order, a prohibition notice or a notice to warn shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months and a fine of an amount not exceeding £1,000; but it shall be a defence to a charge of committing an offence under this subsection to prove that the accused took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence.

(4) If in any case the defence provided by the preceding subsection involves an allegation that the commission of the offence was due to the act or default of another person or to reliance on information supplied by another person, the person charged shall not, without the leave of the court, be entitled to rely on the defence unless, within a period ending seven clear days before the hearing, he has served on the prosecutor a notice giving such information identifying or assisting in the identification of the other person as was then in his possession.

(5) Where the commission by any person of an offence of contravening a prohibition order is due to the act or default of some other person the other person shall be guilty of the offence and may be charged with and convicted of the offence by virtue of this subsection whether or not proceedings are taken against the first-mentioned person.

4 Power to obtain information

(1) If the Secretary of State considers that, for the purpose of deciding whether to make, vary or revoke safety regulations or a prohibition order or to serve, vary or revoke a prohibition notice or to serve or revoke a notice to warn, he requires information which another person is likely to be able to furnish, the Secretary of State may serve on the other person a notice requiring the person—

(a) to furnish to the Secretary of State, within a period specified in the notice, such information as is so specified;

(b) to produce such documents as are specified in the notice at a time and place so specified and to permit a person appointed by the Secretary of State for the purpose to take copies of the documents at that time and place;

but a barrister, advocate or solicitor shall not be required by such a notice to furnish information contained in a privileged communication made by or to him in that capacity or to produce a document containing such a communication.

(2) A person who—

(a) fails, without reasonable cause, to comply with a notice served on him in pursuance of the preceding subsection ; or

(b) in purporting to comply with a requirement which by virtue of paragraph (a) of the preceding subsection is contained in a notice served on him in pursuance of that subsection, furnishes information which he knows is false in a material particular or recklessly furnishes information which is false in a material particular,

shall be guilty of an offence and, in the case of an offence under paragraph (a) of this subsection, liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £1,000 and, in the case of an offence under paragraph (b) of this subsection, liable on conviction on indictment to a fine and on summary conviction to a fine of an amount not exceeding the statutory maximum.

(3) No information obtained by virtue of this section shall be disclosed except—

(a) for the purpose of any criminal proceedings or any investigation with a view to such proceedings; or

(b) for the purpose of facilitating the performance by the Director General of Fair Trading of his functions under Part III of the Fair Trading Act 1973 or for the purpose of any proceedings under the said Part III; or

(c) for the purpose of enabling the Secretary of State to decide whether to make, vary or revoke safety regulations or a prohibition order or whether to serve, vary or revoke a prohibition notice or to serve or revoke a notice to warn ; or

(d) for the purpose of enabling the Secretary of State or a Northern Ireland Department to fulfil a Community obligation; or

(e) in a prohibition notice, a notice to warn or a warning published as required by a notice to warn or in a warning about goods which is published by the Secretary of State;

but the prohibition on disclosure imposed by this subsection does not apply to publicised information.

(4) A person who discloses information in contravention of the preceding subsection shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years and a fine and, on summary conviction, to a fine of an amount not exceeding the statutory maximum.

5 Enforcement

(1) Subject to the following subsection, it shall be the duty of each weights and measures authority to enforce within its area the provisions of safety regulations and section 2 of this Act and the provisions of prohibition orders and prohibition notices and subsections (3) and (5) of section 3 of this Act so far as those subsections relate to such orders and notices.

(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations transfer the whole or part of the duty imposed on a weights and measures authority by the preceding subsection to another person who has agreed to the transfer; and the regulations may, without prejudice to the generality of the preceding provisions of this subsection—

(a) make different provision for different circumstances;

and

(b) contain such incidental and supplemental provisions (including provision for the Secretary of State to defray expenses of a person on whom a duty is imposed by the regulations) as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.

(3) The provisions of Schedule 2 to this Act shall have effect for the purpose of facilitating—

(a) the enforcement by the Secretary of State of provisions mentioned in subsection (1) of this section ; and

(b) the performance of a duty imposed on a person by virtue of this section ; but nothing in the preceding provisions of this subsection prejudices any powers which are exercisable by the Secretary of State apart from this subsection.

(4) If the Secretary of State directs a person on whom a duty is imposed by virtue of subsection (1) or (2) of this section to make a report to the Secretary of State, in such form and containing such particulars as are specified in the direction, on the exercise of the person's functions under this Act or, while the Consumer Protection Act 1961 remains in force, under this Act and that Act, it shall be the duty of the person to comply with the direction.

(5) Nothing in the preceding provisions of this section or in regulations made by virtue of subsection (2) of this section authorises a weights and measures authority or a person specified in the regulations to institute proceedings in Scotland for an offence.

6 Civil liability

(1) Any obligation imposed on a person by safety regulations or a prohibition order or a prohibition notice is a duty owed by him to any other person who may be affected by a failure to perform the obligation, and a breach of that duty is actionable (subject to the defences and other incidents applying to actions for breach of statutory duty).

(2) An agreement shall be void so far as it would, apart from this subsection, have the effect of excluding or restricting an obligation mentioned in the preceding subsection or liability for a breach of such an obligation.

(3) References in the preceding provisions of this section to an obligation imposed by safety regulations do not include such an obligation as to which the regulations state that those provisions do not apply to it.

(4) A contravention of any provision of safety regulations, a prohibition order or a prohibition notice and the commission of an offence under section 2 or 3 of this Act shall not affect the validity of any contract or rights arising under any contract except so far as the contract provides otherwise.

7 Supplemental

(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations with respect to the manner of giving information in pursuance of Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 to this Act.

(2) Any document required or authorised by virtue of this Act to be served on a person may be so served—

(a) by delivering it to him or by leaving it at his proper address or by sending it by post to him at that address; or

(b) if the person is a body corporate, by serving it in accordance with the preceding paragraph on the secretary or clerk of that body ; or

(c) if the person is a partnership, by serving it as aforesaid on a partner or on a person having control or management of the partnership business.

(3) For the purposes of the preceding subsection and section 26 of the Interpretation Act 1889 (which relates to the service of documents by post) in its application to the preceding subsection, the proper address of any person on whom a document is to be served by virtue of this Act shall be his last known address except that—

(a) in the case of service on a body corporate or its secretary or clerk it shall be the address of the registered or principal office of the body ;

(b) in the case of service on a partnership or a partner or a person having the control or management of a partnership business it shall be the principal office of the partnership;

and for the purposes of this subsection the principal office of a company registered outside the United Kingdom or a partnership carrying on business outside the United Kingdom is its principal office within the United Kingdom.

(4) Where an offence under any provision of this Act which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

(5) Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members the preceding subsection shall apply in relation to the acts and defaults of a member in connection with his functions of management as if he were a director of the body corporate.

(6) Any power to make an order or regulations which is conferred on the Secretary of State by this Act shall be exercisable by statutory instrument and any statutory instrument made by virtue of this subsection, except an instrument containing safety regulations or containing only an order made by virtue of section 12(2) of this Act, shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

(7) No safety regulations shall be made unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

(8) In subsection (4) of section 2 of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 (which provides that a description or mark applied to goods in pursuance of an enactment mentioned in that subsection shall be deemed not to be a trade description) after paragraph (f) there shall be inserted the words

“(g) the Consumer Safety Act 1978”,

and in subsection (5)(a) of that section (which provides that where, under certain Acts including the Food and Drugs Act (Northern Ireland) 1958, the application of a description to goods is prohibited except in certain cases the description shall be deemed not to be a trade description when applied in those cases) after the figures " 1958 " there shall be inserted the words

“or the Consumer Safety Act 1978”.

8 Expenses etc and reports

(1) There shall be paid out of money provided by Parliament—

(a) any expenses incurred by a Minister of the Crown or government department in consequence of the provisions of this Act; and

(b) any increase attributable to this Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other enactment; and any sums received by a Minister of the Crown or a government department by virtue of this Act shall be paid into the Consolidated Fund.

(2) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to lay before each House of Parliament from time to time, and in any event not less than once in every five years, a report on the exercise of the functions under this Act and, while the Consumer Protection Act 1961 remains in force, of the functions under that Act, of the Secretary of State and of persons on whom duties are imposed by virtue of section 5 of this Act.

9 Interpretation

(1) Subject to the following subsection, for the purposes of this Act a person supplies goods only if, in the course of carrying on a business (whether or not a business of dealing in the goods in question) and either as principal or agent—

(a) he sells (otherwise than under a hire-purchase agreement), hires out or lends the goods to another person ; or

(b) he enters into a hire-purchase agreement, or a contract for work and materials, to furnish the goods to another person; or

(c) he exchanges the goods for any consideration (which may consist of trading stamps) other than money ; or

(d) he gives the goods to another person either as a prize or otherwise;

and " supply" and related expressions shall be construed accordingly.

(2) In this Act any reference to supply does not include supply to a person with whom the goods in question were insured against damage and, except in relation to a notice to warn, does not include supply which is incidental to the letting or sale of land and, except in relation to a prohibition notice, does not include—

(a) supply to a person who carries on a business of buying such goods as those in question and repairing or reconditioning them; and

(b) supply by a sale of articles as scrap (that is to say for the value of materials included in the articles and not of the articles themselves);

and if a person supplies goods by hiring them out or lending them, then, for the purposes of this Act, he does not supply them by reason only of anything done in pursuance of the arrangements for the hiring out or loan.

(3) Where a person supplies goods to another person under a hire-purchase agreement, conditional sale agreement or credit-sale agreement or under an agreement for the hiring of goods (other than a hire-purchase agreement) and the first-mentioned person—

(a) carries on the business of financing the provision of goods for others by means of such agreements; and

(b) in the course of that business acquired his interest in the goods supplied to the other person as a means of financing the provision of them for the other person by a further person, the further person and not the first-mentioned person shall be treated for the purposes of this Act as supplying the goods to the other person.

(4) In this Act—

• " conditional sale agreement ", " credit-sale agreement " and " hire-purchase agreement" have the meanings assigned to them by section 189(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, and for the purposes of this Act " goods " in the definitions of those expressions shall have the same meaning as in this Act;

• " contravention" includes failure to comply, and related expressions shall be construed accordingly;

• " goods " includes substances whether natural or manufactured and whether or not incorporated in or mixed with other goods and—

  (a)

  in relation to a notice to warn, includes things comprised in land which by operation of law became land on becoming so comprised ; but

  (b)

  does not include food as defined in section 135(1) of the Food and Drugs Act 1955, feeding stuff and fertiliser as defined in section 66(1) of the Agriculture Act 1970, medicinal products within the meaning of the Medicines Act 1968 in respect of which there is in force a product licence within the meaning of that Act (except cosmetic and toilet products as defined by regulations made by the Secretary of State) and controlled drugs within the meaning of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, except drugs which are excepted from section 4(1)(b) of that Act (which makes it unlawful to supply a controlled drug) by regulations under section 7(1)(a) of that Act;

• " notice " means notice in writing ;

• " personal injury " includes disease and any other impairment of a person's physical or mental condition ;

• " prohibition order ", " prohibition notice " and " notice to warn " have the meanings assigned to them by section 3(1) of this Act;

• " publicised information ", in relation to a disclosure, means information which, before the disclosure occurred, was published in proceedings mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) or in a warning mentioned in paragraph (e) of section 4(3) of this Act;

• " safe " means such as to prevent or adequately to reduce any risk of death and any risk of personal injury from the goods in question or from circumstances in which the goods might be used or kept, and for the purposes of section 1 of this Act the Secretary of State shall be entitled to consider that goods containing radioactive substances are safe or not safe by reference to the radiation from the goods and from other sources and to the consequences of the radiation for users of the goods and other persons ;

• " safety regulations" has the meaning assigned to it by section 1(1) of this Act; and

• " the statutory maximum" means the prescribed sum within the meaning of section 28 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 as respects England and Wales and section 289B of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975 as respects Scotland (which is £1,000 or another sum fixed by order to take account of changes in the value of money); and references in this Act to the Secretary of State include any other Minister of the Crown in charge of a government department.

10 Repeals and transitional provisions

(1) The enactments and instrument mentioned in the first and second columns of Schedule 3 to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent specified in the third column of that Schedule.

(2) If a draft of regulations under section 1 of the Consumer Protection Act 1961 is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, a statutory instrument containing the regulations shall not be subject to annulment in pursuance of subsection (6) of that section.

(3) In section 3(2) of the said Act of 1961 (under which a person who sells or has certain other dealings in goods which do not comply with the requirements of regulations under that Act is punishable with a fine not exceeding £100 or, in the case of a second or subsequent conviction, with a fine not exceeding £250 and imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months) for the words from " one hundred pounds " to " two hundred and fifty pounds " there shall be substituted the words

“one thousand pounds”;

and in paragraph 5 of the Schedule to that Act (under which a person who obstructs another person in the exercise of powers of inspection conferred on the other person by paragraph 1 of that Schedule is liable to a fine not exceeding £20) for the words " twenty pounds " there shall be substituted the words

“two hundred pounds”.

(4) Section 5(1) of this Act shall apply to the provisions of sections 2 and 3(2), (2A) and (3) of the said Act of 1961 as it applies to the provisions of safety regulations.

(5) Subsections (2) to (4) of this section shall cease to have effect when the repeal of the said Act of 1961 by this Act comes into force.

(6) Subsection (4) of section 1 of this Act shall not apply to a proposal to make safety regulations if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the proposed regulations—

(a) will relate only to goods in respect of which regulations under section 1 of the said Act of 1961 impose such requirements as are mentioned in section 1(1) of that Act; and

(b) will impose substantially similar requirements in respect of the goods;

and it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to include, in any safety regulations as respects which the said subsection (4) did not apply by virtue of this subsection, a statement that he was satisfied as aforesaid.

11 Application to Northern Ireland

This Act shall have effect, in its application to Northern Ireland, with the following modifications, namely,—

(a) safety regulations may revoke regulations in force under the Consumer Protection Act (Northern Ireland) 1965 ;

(b) in section 1(4) the words from " and in " onwards shall be omitted;

(c) in paragraph (c) of subsection (7) of section 2 for the words " England or Wales " there shall be substituted the words

“Northern Ireland”

and at the end of that paragraph there shall be inserted the words

“for Northern Ireland”;

(d) in paragraph (d) of the said subsection (7) for the words " information" and " laid" there shall be substituted respectively the words

“complaint”and " made ";

(e) in section 5 for the references to a weights and measures authority there shall be substituted references to a district council;

(f) section 8(1) shall be omitted ;

(g) in section 9(4)—

(i) in the definition of " goods ", for the reference to section 135(1) of the Food and Drugs Act 1955 there shall be substituted a reference to section 70(1) of the Food and Drugs Act (Northern Ireland) 1958, and

(ii) in the definition of " statutory maximum ", for the reference to England and Wales there shall be substituted a reference to Northern Ireland,

and for the purposes of the definition of " statutory maximum" as so amended the provisions of the Criminal Law Act 1977 which relate to the sum mentioned in that definition shall extend to Northern Ireland;

(h) in section 10(3) to (6) for the references to the Consumer Protection Act 1961 there shall be substituted references to the Consumer Protection Act (Northern Ireland) 1965 and in section 10(4) the word

“(2A)”shall be omitted.

12 Short title and commencement

(1) This Act may be cited as the Consumer Safety Act 1978.

(2) This Act shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may by order appoint; and an order in pursuance of this subsection may appoint different days for different provisions of this Act or for different purposes of the same provision and may contain such transitional provisions as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.