Do you have a link to the announcment please?

Link to not having to use UKCA

A CE mark means the supplier asserts the item meets all the necessary legal requirements that apply before the item can be sold in the European Union. They mostly relate to safety, and most developed countries have similar or identical requirements. In practice, most UK manufacturers have continued to meet EU requirements and CE mark all their products. Two reasons:

• British products have to be CE marked before they can be sold in Europe or any other country that recognises the CE mark. Brexit does not alter the need for exports to be CE marked.
• Almost all the legal requirements needed to get a CE mark are enshrined in British Law, and nothing has been done to unpick them. Thus, UKCA and CE both require conformance to the same British legislation, which is still EU compatible. In most respects CE and UKCA are identical, except UKCA adds more bureaucracy, especially when products are sold in Europe and the mainland UK, and in Northern Ireland where special rules apply. Basically, it's necessary to satisfy UK law to get a UKCA mark, and because British law is the same as EU law, it might just as well be a CE.

To be sold outside the UK, boilers have to be CE marked.

Even though UKCA and CE are equivalent at the moment, UKCA isn't accepted abroad. The problem is UKCA could different to CE in future, and foreign purchasers aren't interested in working out what the differences might be. It's easier for them to demand CE, because then they only have to track one system.

I suspect after all the rah-rah-rah of leaving, the government is finding 'getting Brexit done' to be far more hard work than the optimists expected. Fairly easy to leave the EU and sort out a divorce settlement, but not to fix what happens next. It includes revising the entire body of British legislation. Not easy to unpick European requirements from British ones, especially as European and many British requirements are satisfactorily interrelated in complex ways, and shouldn't be changed unless there's a positive advantage.

Typical of how all governments work: they'd rather fix details when they're obviously broken than plunge into tricky new policy that requires making complex legislative changes on a grand scale. Extra painful for Conservative politicians who are against intervention on principle.

Could be done, but it requires MPs to work much harder on changing the law than they are. Instead, they passed the Great Repeal Bill in 2016, and empowered themselves to make changes later. Since then it's been found difficult and/or counter-productive to change anything. The devil is in the detail.

UKCA burdened British firms with a lot of extra bureaucracy for no practical benefit. Recognising that, government are backing away from it. Quite right.

Dave

There are a number of problems with this change. Some of the UK legislation has been changed. The presumption is that it will still be changed and if you want too you can UKCA mark. And for a product that won't be sold outside the UK, for whatever reason, that may actually be easier. But what happens when the EU and UK regulations drift apart? If we continue to accept CE marked goods then a CE marked item would have be accepted when it would not meet UK law.
As long as the UK accepts CE marked goods any maker or seller who sells in both markets will only CE mark them. Why even spend time on the paperwork to add UKCA.

So will they ukdate UK law to match EU? Or let / drive them to diverge and let someone else sort out the mess later?

Anyone who voted to leave the EU didn't know what they were doing because they were not told what would happen and clearly some changes that were supposed to happen have not.

We are seeing issues in my day job – aviation. There was a recent change to the regulations around UK CAA design approvals (Part 21J). This was without UK consultation and mirrors a EU (EASA) change. Apparently they think having the Europeans consult on the changes on behalf of the UK industry is OK

This is purely my personal opinion and has nothing to do with my employer and does not represent any view that they may or may not have.

Robert.