Approach to the European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020 Trade and Other Matters Technical Barriers to Trade Use of relevant international standards
The TBT Chapter provisions on international standards in the Agreement include their interaction with product regulation. Product regulation seeks to make sure that goods, and related processes, support public policy objectives including consumer safety, public health, and environmental protection. Voluntary standards can support public policy objectives and are often recognised as best practice for businesses. In some cases, particular voluntary standards can also be one way to meet some or all of the legal requirements in a regulation. For the purposes of the TBT Chapter (and the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’) TBT Agreement), standards are documents approved by bodies recognised for standardisation, which provide rules, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes, with which compliance is voluntary. International standards are approved by international standardising bodies.
	At the end of the Transition Period, most areas of UK product legislation will become retained EU law. The retained EU law will enable the Secretary of State to designate certain standards in respect of Great Britain so that they give rise to the rebuttable presumption of conformity with requirements set in regulations.
	Article TBT.4(3) of the TCA requires the UK and EU to use relevant international standards as a basis for their technical regulations, except where these would be ineffective or inappropriate to meet the legitimate objectives pursued. A similar requirement applies in the WTO Agreement on TBT. Article TBT.4(4)-(5) defines relevant international standards for the purposes of the TBT Chapter of the TCA.
	The Act will amend retained EU law to enable this commitment to be met, by providing extra clarity that international standards can be used among the standards which the Secretary of State may designate for the presumption of conformity with manufactured goods regulation in Great Britain. The Act will enable UK Ministers to designate an international standard directly where that is in the UK’s interests.