Having been granted Royal Assent on 21 July 2025, the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025 moved from debate into law, opening a new phase in the UK’s approach to product regulation. Much of the earlier debate during the Bill stage focused on the balance between regulatory alignment with the EU, the implications for devolved administrations, and the UK’s wider trade ambitions. Now that the legislation is on the statute book, attention is shifting towards how it will actually be used – and what this means for Northern Ireland.
Scope of the Act
The Product Regulation and Metrology Act is what is known as an ‘enabling law’ or ‘framework legislation’. It grants the Secretary of State for the Department of Business and Trade (DBT) broad powers to make product regulations by secondary legislation, supported by a new code of conduct that commits government to act transparently and proportionately. In this way, the legislation creates a flexible system that can evolve over time.
The Act empowers the DBT Secretary of State to make regulations that span almost every stage of a product’s lifecycle. That means the design of goods, the components they contain, their labelling and marking, the information given to consumers, and the obligations of marketplaces including online marketplaces. It allows requirements to be placed not just on manufacturers, but also on importers, distributors, and digital platforms.
Whilst the Government has signalled that the first use of these powers is likely to be in relation to online marketplaces and unsafe products such as lithium-ion batteries in e-bikes, concerns were raised during the passage of the Bill about what the legislation would mean for devolution, and about the UK aligning more closely with the EU.
Devolution
Although the Product Regulation and Metrology Act is UK-wide legislation, it touches on areas – like consumer protection and trading standards – that have devolved dimensions. During the passage of the Bill, legislative consent was formally sought, negotiated, and ultimately granted from the devolved legislatures. However, the process highlighted continuing unease among devolved administrations. Their concerns centred not only on the breadth of powers conferred on Ministers in Westminster, but also on the possibility that secondary legislation made under the Act could have practical effects in devolved areas without adequate scrutiny or involvement of the devolved institutions.
Section 10 of the Act now requires that any regulations made within devolved competence must obtain the consent of the relevant devolved ministers or departments, except where the provisions are only incidental or consequential. While this safeguard protects the interests of devolved administrations, it is likely that legislatures will monitor closely how the powers granted under the Act are exercised.
Divergence
The scope of the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025 also raises important questions about the extent to which the UK Government should use the Act’s powers to voluntarily align with EU product standards.
The Act enables targeted recognition of EU standards within the UK regulatory system. This could help reduce duplication for businesses, particularly in Northern Ireland, which must comply with EU requirements under the Windsor Framework while also seeking access to the market in Great Britain. For these firms, recognition of EU standards could provide clearer guidance, lower compliance costs, and fewer administrative hurdles. In this way, voluntary alignment could aid in reducing divergence between Great Britian and Northern Ireland by reducing divergence between the UK and the EU.
However, extensive alignment may also constrain the UK’s capacity to diverge in the longer term. Greater reliance on EU rules could limit flexibility in pursuing new trade agreements or domestic regulatory innovations, such as in the area of artificial intelligence.
Northern Ireland: a special case
Northern Ireland sits at the intersection of these debates. Under the Windsor Framework, EU product rules continue to apply in many areas for goods placed on the market locally. That has left some businesses feeling caught between two systems: the EU regime that applies in Northern Ireland, and the evolving UK regime in Great Britain.
The new Act does not resolve this divergence but it does give Ministers in Westminster the ability to recognise compliance with certain EU rules as meeting UK requirements, where that is judged to be in the public interest.
An example of the UK Government signalling a willingness to voluntarily align with the EU arose when MLAs in Northern Ireland sought to block the application of an EU measure on packaging and labelling of chemicals by triggering the Stormont Brake mechanism. Under this mechanism, at least 30 MLAs from two or more parties can notify the UK Government of their wish to block an amended or replacement EU law on the grounds that it ‘significantly differs’ from the original legislation and ‘would have a significant impact specific to everyday life of communities in Northern Ireland in a way that is liable to persist’. After reviewing the notification, the UK Government determined that these conditions had not been met, finding that the measure did not reach the required threshold.
Accordingly, the law was permitted to take effect. However, in explaining its decisions, the UK Government signalled that it intends to extend equivalent provisions across the UK as a whole. This approach indicates that ministers may increasingly mirror EU legislation across the UK to reduce divergence. Looking ahead, areas such as gene editing and agricultural marketing may test this approach further, with some measures potentially falling under future dynamic alignment agreements, for example through a UK–EU sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal.
In conclusion
The Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025 does not rewrite the rules of product safety or market access in the UK. Instead, it equips the Westminster Government with a toolkit – one that could be used to modernise safety law, manage divergence with the EU, and adapt to the digital economy.
As such, the Act is best understood as the start of a process rather than the end of one. The next few months are likely to see consultations and draft regulations on priority areas: unsafe batteries and e-mobility devices, online platforms, and possibly certain categories of connected devices where software updates can create new safety risks. Each of these measures will be laid before Parliament at Westminster, but their impact will be felt directly across the UK’s markets and enforcement systems. For Northern Ireland, where questions of devolution and regulatory alignment are more than theoretical, how the Act’s ‘toolkit’ is used will be crucial.