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

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Wales) Regulations 2012 (S.I. 2012/2705 (W. 291)) (“the principal Regulations”).

The amendments—

(a) provide for the continuing enforcement of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 10/2011 on plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food (OJ No L 12, 15.1.2011, p 1) (“Regulation 10/2011”) as last amended by Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/752 amending and correcting Regulation (EU) No. 10/2011 on plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food (OJ No L 113, 29.4.2017, p 18) by—

(i) replacing the definition of Regulation 10/2011 in the principal Regulations in order for references to Regulation 10/2011 to be references to that Regulation as amended (regulation 3); and

(ii) amending references to Regulation 10/2011 in the table in the Schedule to the principal Regulations to enforce amendments made to Regulation 10/2011 (regulation 14(b));

(b) apply certain provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (1990 c. 16) (“the 1990 Act”), with modifications, to the principal Regulations (regulations 13 and 15). Section 10 of the 1990 Act is applied (with modifications) to enable improvement notices to be served to require compliance with any of the provisions listed in regulation 27(1)(a) of the principal Regulations as amended by these Regulations. The provisions, as applied, make the failure to comply with an improvement notice an offence. Consequential amendments are made—

(i) to provide that cases of non-compliance with specified provisions are to be dealt with by the service of improvement notices rather than by prosecutions (regulations 4, 5, 7(b), 9, 10, 12 and 14(c));

(ii) to renumber the existing Schedule to the principal Regulations (regulations 6, 7(a), 14(a) and 15); and

(c) make minor amendments to clarify the competent authorities (regulation 8) and enforcement authorities (regulation 11).

The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to these Regulations. As a result, it was not considered necessary to carry out a regulatory impact assessment as to the likely costs and benefits of complying with these Regulations.