UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988

the instrument as a whole of The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

Contravening this instrument is an offence under section

12 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Not determined

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Revoked
Revoked by
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 (Commencement No. 3, Transitional Provisions, Savings and Consequential Amendments) Order 2015
Revoked on
1 October 2015
Made
26 July 1988
In force from
Not determined
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations (“the Regulations”) which revoke the Upholstered Furniture (Safety) Regulations 1980 as amended by the Upholstered Furniture (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 1983 impose requirements in relation to new domestic furniture, including garden furniture which may be used indoors and furniture for use in caravans, subject to exceptions from some of the Regulations for certain furniture. Some of the requirements apply to second-hand furniture. The Regulations do not apply to goods for export or to the supply of goods made before 1st January 1950 or to the supply of materials intended for re-upholstering furniture made before that date. The main provisions of the Regulations are as follows:– a no furniture (other than mattresses, bed-bases, pillows and cushions) may include upholstery which does not pass the cigarette test as defined in regulation 3(1) (regulation 5); b no furniture (other than pillows and cushions) may include any filling material which fails the relevant ignitability test as defined in regulation 3(1) and no furniture may include as filling any crumb foam which is not derived from combustion-modified foam (regulation 6); c loose filling material may not be supplied for filling pillows or cushions or upholstering or re-upholstering furniture if it fails the relevant ignitability test or if it contains crumb foam which is not derived from combustion-modified foam (regulation 7); d if furniture (other than mattresses, bed-bases, pillows and cushions) is supplied with a permanent cover the cover must pass the match test as defined in regulation 3(1) unless the cover is made of a specified material and the furniture has an interliner which passes the test in Schedule 3 (regulation 8(1) to (3)); e a cover or fabric intended to replace the permanent cover on furniture mentioned in regulation 8(1) may not be supplied unless the cover or fabric passes the match test or the furniture has an interliner which passes the test in schedule 3 and the cover or fabric is of a specified material (regulation 8(4)); f covers other than permanent covers for furniture except mattresses, bed-bases, pillows and cushions must pass the appropriate match test (regulation 9); g the appropriate display label as set out in Schedule 6 is to be attached to furniture other than mattresses, bed-bases, pillows and cushions which is exposed for supply by retail (regulation 10); h permanent labels are to be attached to furniture (except mattresses and bed-bases) which include upholstery and to covers other than permanent covers (regulation 11) and if the label is not in the longer form (as specified in Part II of Schedule 7) the additional information set out in regulation 12 must be supplied to an enforcement authority, if required; i manufacturers and importers must supply the information specified in regulation 13 to an enforcement authority, if required to do so; j second-hand furniture is required to comply with regulations 5, 6 and 8(1) to (3) from 1st March 1993 (regulation 14(2); regulation 1(2)(j)) and in the period from 1st March 1990 until 1st March 1993 second-hand furniture may only be supplied subject to the requirements of regulation 14(3) taken with regulation 14(4); k the supply (including the offering and agreeing to supply and the exposing and possessing for supply) of any furniture or other article in respect of which any of the requirements of the Regulations is not satisfied is prohibited, subject to an exception for goods which are supplied as part of a caravan which is being supplied second-hand (regulation 15). The provisions of the Regulations come into force on various dates between 1st November 1988 (when regulation 6 insofar as it relates to foam comes into force as regards the duties of manufacturers and importers, subject to a postponement for garden furniture and furniture for caravans) and 1st March 1993 (regulation 1(2)). The Regulations refer to the provisions of the British Standards set out in regulation 3. The Regulations do not require testing to be carried out by a United Kingdom test house. If equivalent Standards giving the appropriate level of protection are adopted in other member States or by other bodies the Regulations may be amended so as to refer also to such Standards. Copies of the British Standards referred to in the Regulations may be obtained from any of the sales outlets operated by the British Standards Institution (BSI) or by post from the BSI at Linford Wood, Milton Keynes, MK14 6LE.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.55.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.55 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source