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Written question asked by Kirsteen Sullivan (Labour) on Friday, 10 October 2025, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 14 October 2025. It was answered by Kate Dearden (Labour) on Monday, 20 October 2025 on behalf of the Department for Business and Trade.

Protective Clothing: Standards

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many personal protective equipment products were tested against regulatory standards by the Office for Product Safety and Standards in the (a) 2022, (b) 2023 and (c) 2024 reporting year.

Answer

Under UK law, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) manufacturers and importers are responsible for the compliance of PPE placed on the market. As an intelligence-led and risk-based national regulator, the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) prioritises its regulatory activity, which includes product testing, border targeting, market surveillance, enforcement and advice, to best tackle non-compliance and protect consumers. Numbers of notifications to OPSS and published product safety alerts and reports for non-compliant PPE since 2021 are:

Year

PPE Product Safety Database notifications to OPSS

PPE Product Safety Recalls or Reports published by OPSS

2024-25

67

110

2023-24

278

94

2022-23

82

18

2021-22

383

7

During targeted PPE testing conducted by OPSS between October 2021 and September 2022, 276 out of 315 products did not meet regulatory requirements.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
80132
Session
2024-26
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
Protective clothing Standards Testing
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk