Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Amendment, etc.) Regulations 2025

Considered in Grand Committee

15:45:00

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Amendment, etc.) Regulations 2025. Relevant document: 29th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

My Lords, in heading off the ever-growing tide of waste which blights our planet, we must prioritise both responsibility and fairness. Those who create waste must rightly take responsibility for its safe treatment at the end of its life, and those costs should be shared fairly and borne by those who also make the profit. As your Lordships know, we are facing a mounting waste crisis and electrical waste is no exception; in fact, it is the fastest-growing waste stream globally, and the UK is the second-biggest generator of electrical waste in the world. Many electricals, including those sold from the online retail and vaping industries, are ending up in our bins, littering our streets and, too often, harming our natural environment. This is not sustainable economically, environmentally or socially. We must reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill and, in doing so, we must ensure that those who benefit from selling electrical items pay fully and fairly for their treatment at end of life. This legislation will address two key areas. I will start by addressing the issue of sales of electricals placed on the market via online marketplaces and overseas sellers who are not meeting their obligations. The sales of electricals from sellers based overseas via online marketplaces, such as eBay and Amazon, are skyrocketing, with over 0.5 million electricals being sold every year via these platforms. I am sure that many Members of this House have recently made just such a purchase. However, when UK businesses sell an electrical item, they incur an obligation to pay for its recycling at the end of its life, and most overseas sellers using these platforms are not meeting their financial obligations to do the same. This is wrong, not least because compliant UK-based businesses are picking up the costs for those free-riding under the existing regulations. We believe that this must stop. I now turn my attention to the issue of vapes, e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and other similar products, which for convenience I will refer to simply as “vapes” for the rest of this debate. The Government have already banned the sale of single-use vapes—a vital first step in taking an environmentally harmful product off the market—but our work does not end here. Other types of rechargeable and refillable vapes continue to be sold, and we need to ensure that their collection and treatment is properly and fairly funded. Producers of electricals, including vapes, are already required to finance the cost of their treatment when they become waste. However, existing regulations mean that producers of other types of goods—toys and leisure equipment, for example—risk cross-subsidising the waste management costs of vapes. This cannot go on. Vapes are difficult and expensive to recycle, as they contain hazardous substances and can cause serious fires if not treated correctly. Unfortunately, a friend of mine suffered from such a fire in a recent incident. He has a haulage company, and he was called in the early hours of the morning to be told that one of his lorries had caught fire. By the time that the fire service was able to put the fires out, he had lost nearly all his lorries. It was absolutely appalling, and it was all down to a consignment of vapes in one of the lorries. So this is a serious issue, for health and for business purposes, which we really need to address. We believe that the responsibility for dealing with vapes when they become waste must fall squarely on the shoulders of those who produce them. This is why I am pleased and proud to introduce these regulations, which will hold those producers directly accountable for the environmental impact of the vapes and other similar products that they place on the UK market. This instrument is about fairness for UK businesses. It is about supporting them to do the right thing and ensuring that the right people are paying their fair share of the waste management costs associated with their products. In doing so, we send the clear message that environmental responsibility is not optional; it is part of doing business in a modern, circular economy. Transitioning to a zero-waste economy is one of five priorities that Defra will deliver as part of a mission-led approach to government. Our circular economy strategy later this year will set out further plans to stem the rising tide of electronic waste. This Government are committed to putting the “polluter pays” principle into action. We are on the side of those businesses that behave responsibly to protect our planet, and we are rooting out those that are not doing their fair share. For those reasons, I beg to move.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing these regulations, which I warmly welcome and support. In the case of her road haulier friend, I hope that he had good insurance and was able to recover the costs and get back on the road again. I have a couple of questions in order to understand more of the detail of how the regulations will work. The Minister mentioned Amazon and eBay, but one that keeps bobbing up, although I have never actually used it, is Temu, which seems to be everywhere for everybody. I welcome what the Minister is proposing in respect of online marketplace operators, but my question is how it will work in connection with the electrical goods to which the regulations refer. When one makes a purchase—obviously, I have used one of the companies to which the Minister referred, which I do not want to advertise, as there are others available—at what stage will the regulations kick into effect? How will her department police the operations as smoothly as the regulations envisage? Paragraph 5.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum clearly states: “There are difficulties with enforcement of the 2013 Regulations against non-UK based suppliers”. Obviously, one of the reasons that electrical goods are cheaper online is because the suppliers have not been paying for the costs of disposal. One question, therefore, is: will they now be more expensive as a result of the regulations, although people will be competing more fairly? It is no secret that the rise in online shopping has been one of the greatest challenges to traditional retailers up and down the country, including out-of-town shopping centres and market towns. I personally want to see market towns recover, although I know that there are a number of other issues, including parking. Paragraph 5.5 goes on to say: “The intention of this SI is to ensure that OMP operators who facilitate these sales into the UK are responsible for those costs, ensuring the costs are distributed more fairly”. Presumably, the reporting that the statutory instrument is making a requirement will ensure that such operators are in the system, so to speak. The Minister has identified how flammable and how dangerous some of these items can be. My other question is: what is the normal disposal mechanism for, in particular, e-cigarettes, vapes, heated tobacco products and other similar items? In previous debates on statutory instruments in this very Room, we have discussed how important vaping is in getting people to switch from smoking and in the prevention of smoking in future, although there are obvious dangers where young people are vaping for the first time, which I know the Government are seeking to address. It seems odd that, originally and currently, e-cigarettes, vapes and heated tobacco products fall within category 7 under the WEEE directive, which category also covers toys and leisure equipment. Will they be recategorised, so that vapes are taken out of that category? The Minister will not remember, but there was a toy safety directive when I was a Member of the European Parliament, and I was even a Member of the European Parliament when the WEEE directive appeared in its first incarnation. The toy safety directive covered such things as teddy bears’ eyes—if a child could eat them, they had to be carefully disposed of—and it impacted charity shops on the high street, which had to deal with them separately. I should like to understand how these e-cigarettes, vapes and heated tobacco products will be disposed of and what the financial costs of the collection, treatment and recovery are estimated to be. Will the onus be on the user of these products to dispose of them safely and in a responsible manner? With those few remarks, I wish the Minister well with the regulations, and I hope that they go on to make a positive impact.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. I thank the Minister for her introduction. I have a few specific questions, particularly relating to online marketplaces. We can probably all come up with a list of half a dozen large websites that we would expect to be selling these products, but I have a little awareness—possibly more than most Members of your Lordships House, but still not that great—of things such as Discord servers, which are not very visible or open to the public but require membership. A lot of selling, particularly to young people, may take place through these layers of the internet, which be at the top layer of the TikToks and eBays and so on. How will the Government ensure that we are not going to see the cheapest products ending up further and further down the chain of legibility to government and regulators. I would be interested in understanding a bit more about how the Government will enforce these regulations. How they will find the sellers and work out who owns them and who owns the websites? What level of enforcement is going to happen? I take this opportunity to pay testimony to the work of Action on Smoking and Health. At an ASH event that I attended downstairs a week or so back, they had a disposable vape and a reusable vape, and the trick question was: which was which? They were indistinguishable. I also note recent reports that many shops that used to sell disposable vapes are now selling reusable ones, but the same shops do not sell refills. Such shops are just taking things called reusable vapes and still treating them as disposable vapes. If the Minister is unable to answer that now, I will understand if she wants to write to me. When we are talking about managing the waste problem, although there is a sense that we have dealt with the problem of single-use vapes because we have passed a law, I would question that. From what I have seen and has been said to me, how much have we changed the reality on the ground? My other question comes from practical experience. Last week, I happened to be in the middle of Dudley town centre where I saw what is perhaps a measure of the socioeconomic usage of vaping. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, referred to the fact that vaping was supposed to be for people giving up cigarettes; the last statistic that I saw suggests that there are 1 million people in the UK who vape who have never smoked tobacco. In the middle of Dudley town centre, the borough council had provided a specific bin for the disposal of vapes. My question to the Minister, therefore, follows on from the probably fairly modest extra revenue that these regulations will raise. How will we ensure that the funds raised actually go to the people incurring the costs? I am thinking of the financial impact on councils in particular—I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association—but also any other bodies that may be forced to deal with the disposal of what may or may not be single-use or reusable vapes.

16:00:00

My Lords, we are very supportive of these measures and I very much welcome the Government bringing them forward as part of addressing an ever-growing problem. As the Minister rightly highlighted, e-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, with the 50 million tonnes currently generated globally predicted to grow to 75 million tonnes by 2035. The United Kingdom is the second-biggest generator of this waste per person in the world, so it is absolutely right that the Government are bringing forward measures to address it. I welcome the fact that this will be part of Defra’s wider circular economy strategy. As has been said, we all buy and consume these things and try to recycle them, which can often be difficult to do. Many of these items are designed to be used once and then thrown away, and they are designed in such a way that it is almost impossible to take the batteries out of them. I call for further work to make sure that items are available on the marketplace from which it is actually possible to remove the batteries. I would really like to see a universal standard for that, particularly for vapes. This statutory instrument applies to vapes and secondary online marketplaces, but the thread running through both of those is that the polluter should pay. We agree with that principle and it is welcome that it is here. We agree with the Government’s plans for vapes to be put under the new categorisation 7.1. It was not correct that the toy and board-game industry was in part subsidising the recycling of vapes, which are far more dangerous and complicated to recycle. I have tabled an amendment to the Tobacco and Vapes Bill to set minimum pricing for vape products. Picking up on what the noble Baroness said, I welcome the fact that Defra has brought forward measures to ban single-use vapes, but the truth is that manufacturers are finding ways around that by putting in a rechargeable point and a reusable coil. I have seen vapes selling online for as little as £2.99 which the manufacturers say pass the ban. To me, the answer is putting in minimum pricing and making sure that we have proper vaping products with long battery cycles that are designed to be reused, and keeping these products away from pocket-money prices and our children. I encourage the Minister to go further on those measures as part of the work of the Circular Economy Taskforce. That is an issue, but we welcome the measures in these regulations. I turn to the second part, on the online marketplace and overseas sales. On the issue of dealing with the freeloading problem of online marketplaces that have been exempt from the regulations and have not been meeting the costs of the e-waste that they generate, whereas our bricks-and-mortar sellers have been, it is right that that will change and we welcome it. We also welcome the reclassification, which is good. Just for context, it is estimated that over 1 million tonnes of electronic waste are added to the UK marketplace each year via these platforms. That is a lot of stuff, which they need to be responsible for. Some have worried that this could impact online suppliers and that some might withdraw from the UK market. We do not share those concerns. We think these measures are properly set out and see no reason why they cannot be absorbed. I conclude by asking the Minister a couple of questions. While we welcome the measures, they are quite complex and are being introduced quite quickly, and they will involve a lot of reporting, monitoring and verification and compliance mechanisms, which are required under the regulations. My questions to the Minister are as follows. Are there enough resources available within Defra? Is there enough time for doing this stuff? Does it have the appropriate staff available? Does it have the right procedures in place to monitor the impacts to make sure that enforcement is properly done? With that, we welcome the regulations, and we look forward to this Government going further in these areas.

My Lords, I also thank the Minister for introducing the statutory instrument and outlining its objectives. The ambition to ensure that all producers contribute fairly to the costs of collecting and treating waste electrical and electronic equipment is one that few would dispute. Indeed, His Majesty’s Official Opposition are in full support of these regulations. This instrument makes two key changes. First, it makes online marketplace operators responsible for the WEEE obligations linked to electrical goods sold into the UK by non-UK sellers using their platforms. Secondly, it creates a new, separate category for e-cigarettes, vapes and heated tobacco products, removing them from the broader toys and leisure equipment category. Both are necessary steps to address long-standing imbalances. Like the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I shall pose a number of questions that I hope the Government will consider as implementation progresses. First, on making online marketplace operators responsible for waste costs, what analysis has been conducted to assess likely compliance rates among these operators? Ensuring that the law translates into meaningful change is essential, and enforcement should be at the heart of that. Secondly, how confident are the Government that enforcement will be sufficiently resourced, especially given past difficulties with online sellers who fall outside UK jurisdiction, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering? While it is logical to shift responsibility to platforms with a physical or legal UK presence, is there a risk that some operators may still find routes to avoid liability, either by reclassifying their service or by restructuring seller arrangements? Thirdly, on the methodology for calculating the volume of electrical and electronic equipment sold through online platforms, how prescriptive is the guidance expected to be? Will methodologies be subject to review or audit by regulators to ensure transparency and comparability? I turn to the creation of a dedicated vape category— I should declare an interest as a 15-year vaper myself—which we are told will allow for more targeted collection targets and financial obligations. How clearly defined will this new category be in practice, given the rapid evolution of vaping and nicotine delivery technologies? Will the Government commit to regularly reviewing the scope of this category to ensure it remains fit for purpose? I would also welcome the Minister’s views on the transitional provisions. Are the timelines, particularly 15 November and 31 January, realistic for smaller operators, especially those newly brought into scope? What communication plans are in place to ensure these businesses are fully informed? Effective communication here will be important to the success of the instrument. I note that smaller producers that place less than 5 tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment on the market remain exempt from full financial obligations. Does this de minimis threshold continue to strike the right balance between supporting small business and ensuring environmental responsibility? I was hoping the Minister could help explain how the Government reached this threshold, which seems rather large. In conclusion, we welcome the intent behind these regulations to create a fairer, more enforceable system, but, in doing so, we must ensure that compliance is not only a legal requirement but a level playing field. That requires clarity, transparency and, above all, careful oversight. I look forward to hearing how the Government will monitor these reforms and respond to the questions they inevitably raise.

Looking at the annunciator, I am wondering whether it is worth starting, but let us give it a go; I think we are going to be interrupted. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for their contributions. We are very grateful for the broad support for the regulations and the recognition that they are important. I will turn to the comments and try to answer as many questions as I can. If there are any outstanding—I think particularly on the specific questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett— I am happy to come back in writing, as usual, to ensure we have covered everything. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about online marketplaces, as did other noble Lords. Just to make clear, after the regulations come into force, online marketplaces that are not already registered with a producer compliance scheme must do so by the deadline of 15 November 2025. All online marketplaces will be required to submit the methodology they will use to determine the amount of electricals placed on the market via their platform by their overseas sellers by 15 November. This data submission is a new requirement. The reason for it is that we need to better understand the volume of products being sold into the UK by overseas sellers through online marketplaces. A lot of the compliance and enforcement around this will be dependent on the data and information we have. Online marketplaces will then be required to report this data on a quarterly basis in line with existing reporting obligations. This is subject to transitional provisions, which have been made to reflect that the regulations enter into force part way through the year. Online marketplaces will be required to report this data only for the period after the regulation enters force through to December 2025. They must do so by 31 January 2026. The Secretary of State will then set a national collection target for 2026 for each of the categories of electrical equipment. The regulators will then issue producer compliance schemes with a share of this target on a market share basis. The fees will then be apportioned among the producers within a particular producer compliance scheme based on their market share within a particular category in the previous year. For online marketplaces, this will be based on the data they report from the date the regulations enter into force until December 2025. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, it is quite complicated, but it is important we get this right. That seems like a good place to stop.

My Lords, the Bells are ringing for us. We will adjourn the Committee for 10 minutes.

16:12:00

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

16:20:00

I shall continue to try to cover noble Lords’ questions and comments. The noble Lord, Lord Roborough, asked about compliance and guidance. New guidance will be published to help online marketplaces understand the new obligations; it will, I hope, help with compliance if there is clear guidance on what the expectations are. This will include guidance on the transitional arrangements so that online marketplaces understand their obligations in respect of the data that they submit after the regulations come into force in 2026. We are looking at doing this to make sure that people are clear on what their responsibilities are and to increase compliance with the regulations. Costs were asked about. The impact of the policy means that online marketplaces—the producers—will be liable for end-of-life costs, as I explained in my introduction. Currently, that obligation is supposed to be met by overseas sellers, but there is a high level of non-compliance. This again comes back to compliance. The new obligations on online market producers therefore represent either a cost transfer from their overseas sellers or a fairer reallocation of costs that currently fall disproportionately on UK businesses. We think that these costs are likely to be passported back to overseas sellers via their contractual arrangements with their online marketplaces. The new costs are, therefore, related primarily to familiarisation costs; we estimate that they will be between £1,014 and £3,926, which is quite precise, depending on the size of the business. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about the circular economy strategy and how this measure will fit into that. The strategy and the road maps are designed to create a future where we keep our resources in use for longer; where waste is reduced; where we accelerate the path to net zero; and where we see more investment in critical infrastructure. Within the scope of the circular economy strategy that we are developing, we will also develop a long-term road map for reforming all the different key sectors. Electricals is one of the sectors for which we are going to develop a road map; that will set out a number of short-term, medium-term and long-term interventions to make the sector more circular. We are planning to publish that circular economy strategy in the autumn, after which it will go out for consultation. The noble Earl may be interested in looking at that when it is out. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, mentioned enforcement in the first place. The WEEE regulations are enforced by the Environment Agency and by its equivalents in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales because, obviously, this matter is devolved. They will need to ensure both that online marketplaces are registering with the producer compliance scheme, as I explained, and that they are submitting the data. Again, that data will enable us to ensure that compliance is being met and, where it is not, to enforce. Similarly, the producers of vapes and other similar products will also need to submit data to the Environment Agency on the amount of products that they are placing on the market in the new category, which has been discussed. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, talked about timing and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, talked about timescales. Following the consultation by the previous Government, which took place in the first half of last year, both measures were supported: 87% supported our measures on online marketplaces and 91% were in favour of the proposal on the new category for vapes, which is pretty conclusive. Because of that, we are bringing the legislation forward now so that the changes can be made ahead of the compliance year next year; we thought that, because there was so much support and it is such a problem, it was important to move forward quickly. Resources were also mentioned—and here is my brief, as if by magic. We are working very closely with our regulators to ensure they have all the necessary resources they need. I believe strongly that there is no point in bringing in legislation if you cannot enforce it, and you cannot enforce it if you do not have the resources. An example of this is that we have already provided £10 million to trading standards for vape and tobacco enforcement. We are taking that very seriously. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, asked when the obligations are going to come into force. They would come into force 21 days after they are made, which, if approved by both Houses, we would expect to be later on this summer, or potentially in the autumn, but we are hoping to do this quite quickly. That would mean that they would pick up the financial obligation in the 2026 compliance period. They would be required to pay the registration fee to the producer compliance scheme when they join on 15 November, as I mentioned earlier. We think that most of the schemes would look to spread the costs throughout the year, and many would also likely invoice their producer members on a quarterly basis. The new obligations for producers were mentioned, particularly the new category 7. As we have heard, for vapes and similar products, we are creating this new electronic and electrical equipment category in Schedule 3 to the regulations. We took that decision because it is not right for vapes to be currently categorised as toys, leisure and sports equipment. We thank noble Lords for their support for that decision. The creation of the new category is to ensure that producers of vapes and other similar products pay fairly for the treatment, recovery and environmentally sound disposal of the goods they place on the market. Again, the reporting of the data under the new category will kick in as soon as the regulations have come into force. This new category, of course, is particularly aimed at: “Any device … intended to be used for the consumption of tobacco products, nicotine or any substance containing nicotine, non-nicotine liquids, herbal smoking products, vaping substances, nicotine-containing vapour or any other such products” or electricals. It covers the whole broad spectrum. The examples of the devices will be in Schedule 4 to the regulations, which I stress is non-exhaustive. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talked about the single-use vapes ban and its effectiveness. It came into force, as noble Lords know, on 1 June. Obligations for review are set out in the legislation and include a review of enforcement and civil sanctions as soon as practicable after three years and a post-implementation review at least every five years. We are currently collecting the baseline data on the wholesalers and retailers of single-use vapes in England to support future assessments. Also, the Department of Health and Social Care monitors the current rates of smoking and vaping through various surveys, including the periodic survey on smoking, drinking and drug use among young people and the Action on Smoking and Health annual surveys. We will continue to monitor the effects of this legislation within that.

I thank the Minister for giving way. Three years is a long time if the effective ban on single-use vapes is not stopping them and the electronic waste and plastic waste associated with them. Is there some mechanism—after six months, say—for the Government to see if this really is not working and, if so, are the Government prepared to take some rapid action? Three years seems an age in this context.

As the noble Baroness knows, most legislation is reviewed after five years, so three years is a fair time. It would become fairly obvious if the legislation were completely failing and not working. Presumably, any legislation that is not working needs to be reviewed and looked at in that context. I think three years is probably a fair point to start from and to have within the legislation. On the question of whether the manufacturers could circumvent the ban, the way in which the ban and the legislation was drafted was to address many of those concerns. For example, there were suggestions that manufacturers could simply add a USB port to the end of a single-use device then call it reusable. To be legal for sale, a vape must be refillable, rechargeable and have a replaceable coil. It has to meet all three criteria. When that ban came in, those considerations were looked at—and, of course, local authorities act as the regulator for the ban and are responsible for enforcing the regulations.

16:30:00

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, asked whether it would make the product more expensive. Clearly, any pricing is a matter for retailers, manufacturers and producers. We think that fundamentally it is completely unfair for overseas sellers to be able to undercut sellers on the British high street and British sellers online. It is completely unfair that they can escape or shirk the costs of safe and fair electricals treatment. So, while we recognise the point that the noble Baroness makes, we think that it is very important that they take their fair share of responsibility and of the costs involved.

If I have missed anything, I shall check Hansard and write to people. I beg to move.

Motion agreed.