The government has extended the start date for the new post-Brexit certification rules for construction products by 12 months, after being told that sticking with next year’s deadline would have caused chaos across the industry.
The current CE markings had been due to replaced by the UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) mark in just over four months’ time, however the government has now extended this deadline after repeat warnings that the timescale to hit next year’s deadline was unachievable.
William Bain, Head of Trade Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said:
“The British Chambers of Commerce has led business calls for an extension of at least a year on the easement for CE markings on imported industrial goods, spare parts, and components. Businesses will welcome this reprieve until 1 January 2023, which will protect supply chains and make a huge difference to consumers on the availability of items such as phones and laptops. There is currently a lack of testing capacity to enable the retesting of decades worth of CE marked items for the new UKCA specification, so this measure will be hugely important in allowing time for that capacity to be built and for retesting to take place. A wider problem does still exist however – complex supply chains such as those in the automotive industry still face having to duplicate markings on certain components and incurring large costs for testing as a result. This could compromise the output of these industries, limit availability of goods for consumers and create mounting cost pressures on British businesses. The government needs to work now with businesses to ensure full consideration to the impacts are given before any decision to completely pull the plug on CE-marked goods, risking incurring costs to our economy that we may come to regret.”