The Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2017

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012 (“the principal Regulation”) to provide for the continued enforcement of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 10/2011 on plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food) as amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No. 2016/1416.

Those amendments include—

(a) removal of offences in Regulations 7(2), 14(2), 16(4), 19(1) and 19(3) of the principal Regulations (regulation 4, 6, 8(b) and 9);

(b) amendment of regulation 26 (application of various provisions of the Order) and insertion of a Schedule to the principal Regulations to apply Article 9(1) of the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991, enabling improvement notices to be served to require compliance with provisions of the principal Regulations and provisions of EU Regulations specified in regulation 26(1). The provisions, as applied, make the failure to comply with an improvement notice an offence under Article 9(2) of the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 (regulation 12 and 14);

(c) amendments to remove the requirement to provide a written declaration from regulation 12(8) (regulation 5) and regulation 16(3) of the principal Regulations (regulation 8);

(d) minor amendments to clarify the competent authorities (regulation 7) and enforcement authorities (regulation 10);

(e) minor amendments to regulation 22(2) to reflect the removal of criminal offences (regulation 11);

(f) amendments to the Schedule to the principal Regulations to insert provisions of Regulation 10/2011 and amend the numbering (regulation 13).