general safety requirement

general safety requirement

the focus of consumer safety legislation which applies where there is no particular specified safety regulation. It is a criminal offence to supply, offer or agree to supply, or possess or expose for supply, any consumer goods which fail to comply with the general safety requirement. Consumer goods are any goods ordinarily intended for private use or consumption, except growing crops or things attached to land, water, food, gas, aircraft (other than hang gliders), controlled drugs or medicinal products and tobacco. Goods fail to comply with the general safety requirement if they are not reasonably safe, having regard to all circumstances, including: the manner and purposes for which the goods are being marketed; instructions and warnings; standards of safety applicable to the goods; and the existence of reasonable means to make the goods safer. The supplier has statutory defences: that the problem arises from compliance with an Act of Parliament or European Union obligation; that the goods meet the required safety regulations; that the supplier believed the goods would not be consumed in the UK; that the supplier had no reasonable grounds for believing the goods did not comply with the general safety requirement and that the supplier indicated the goods were not to be supplied as new goods. There are now detailed, almost parallel, obligations.