UK Offence Report

Offence: supply of wet wipes containing plastic

regulation 3(3) of The Environmental Protection (Wet Wipes Containing Plastic) (England) Regulations 2025

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

3 A person who contravenes paragraph (1) is guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
contravening a requirement of the instrument
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

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.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 3(3)?

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes paragraph (1).
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Environmental Protection (Wet Wipes Containing Plastic) (England) Regulations 2025, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

'to a fine' with no stated maximum.

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
Status not determined
Made
18 November 2025
In force from
19 May 2027
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

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

These Regulations, which apply in relation to England, prohibit persons from supplying or offering to supply wet wipes containing plastic (see definitions in regulation 2). Part 2 prohibits the supply of wet wipes containing plastic subject to certain exemptions (regulations 5 to 7). The exemptions include the supply of wet wipes containing plastic by registered pharmacies, supply for medical purposes, supply to businesses, or supply to local authorities. Breach of the prohibition is an offence (regulation 3). It is a defence for a person to show that they took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence (regulation 8). A civil sanctions regime enables regulators to impose a range of civil sanctions (regulation 10 and the Schedule). These are fixed monetary penalties, compliance notices, stop notices and enforcement undertakings. These Regulations make provision for the procedure relating to these sanctions and the available appeal mechanisms. Failure to comply with a stop notice is an offence (paragraph 16 of the Schedule). All appeals relating to a civil sanction are to the First-tier Tribunal. Regulations 9 and 11 provide for enforcement officers to have powers of entry to carry out the necessary investigation in order to determine whether an offence has been committed. Regulation 12 provides for the publication of information on enforcement action taken by regulators. Regulation 13 makes provision on guidance relating to the use of civil sanctions and specifies the information to be included in such guidance. Regulation 14 contains provision for review of the Regulations. Regulators are able to recover the costs of enforcement (paragraph 27 of the Schedule) in the case of compliance notices and stop notices and must issue guidance about their use of enforcement cost recovery notices. A full impact assessment of the effect that these Regulations will have on the costs of business and the voluntary sectors is available from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF, and published alongside these Regulations and its Explanatory Memorandum at www.legislation.gov.uk.

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.

Other offences in the same instrument

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 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 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