That this House regrets the process that led to the Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Household Tumble Dryers) Regulations 2026, because (1) the alignment with Northern Ireland the regulations seek to achieve requires the UK to follow EU law, and (2) they will lead to increased costs and lower efficacy associated with heat pump tumble dryers.
My Lords, before I move my Motion, I have just returned from Northern Ireland and want to say how shocked people are in Northern Ireland at the terrible atrocity that took place last night. This is not the time to discuss it, but we do need answers and there will have to be proper inquiry. I am sure we want to send all our best wishes to the victim and his family.
Some regulations are very technical in nature, and the effects are not felt widely by the public immediately, but the regulations before us today have a very clear and practical effect that will impact the lives of most households in the country, particularly families. Very simply, this regulation bans the sale of new conventional tumble dryers—that is, convector and vented tumble dryers—from January 2027. From then on, the only new tumble dryers that people in England, Wales and Scotland will be able to buy will be heat-pump tumble dryers. Quite apart from the nanny state restriction of choice because of the Government’s obsession with net zero, the legislation is problematic.
While some people may say that they might be cheaper to run—there are real disputes about that—there is no doubt that heat pump tumble dryers are markedly more expensive to buy than conventional tumble dryers. The last thing that people need at the moment, I would have thought, is those extra costs. The most important thing to me on this is that heat pump tumble dryers work only at ambient temperatures, so they will not work in garages or outhouses in winter, unless and until people start to heat those rooms that previously went unheated. I am not sure how the Minister can say how that is an environmental win.
What assessment have the Government made of the environmental impact of people having to start heating garages and sheds during the winter?
This is a ridiculous way of dealing with an important issue. We get one hour now on a statutory instrument and people have to put their names down in advance, which is why there are so few people speaking today. I beg to move my Motion, but it has been handled extremely badly by the Government.
I have to start by declaring an interest as the owner of a heat-pump tumble dryer. There is a real question as to who is losing the plot in this debate. I am sorry that there are not more people here interested in the issue of tumble dryers. I have become a bit of an expert over the last few days, since deciding to speak in this debate.
First, I have a question: how many tumble dryers are manufactured in the United Kingdom for domestic use? The honest answer is that specific figures for tumble-dryer manufacture in the UK are hard to come by from publicly available sources, but what is clear is something significant: there is very little domestic manufacturing to measure. The UK market is heavily reliant on imports from Turkey, China and Poland. In practice, virtually all tumble dryers sold in the UK are manufactured overseas. The major brands operating here—Bosch, Beko, Whirlpool, Electrolux, Samsung and Miele—are all produced elsewhere.
This suggests that the idea that this is some sort of Brexit issue, let alone making it about Northern Ireland, is fallacious. Even without these regulations, tumble dryers in the UK—and on both sides of the Irish Sea—will in future be the heat-pump version anyway. All this stuff from Brexiteers about being a rule-maker rather than a rule-taker is nonsense when it comes to domestic electrical equipment. The shift in European rules about such equipment that is already under way has taken the decision away from us. It is nothing to do with Brexit; it is about our position in the world economy. We do not make them. We buy them from elsewhere, and other people are not prepared to produce something that does not have a mass market. The market for condenser dryers in the UK is miniscule. These regulations simply recognise and govern the inevitable consequence of where we are.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for the opportunity to debate this important SI—although I am still a bit mystified as to why she is so unhappy, since this realigns the UK with the EU, and this would seem to mean that Northern Ireland is in alignment too. More importantly, given the existential climate crisis and household energy bills, I would have thought everybody would support this SI. It is such a win for both consumers and the environment. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, said, we need to take every step we can. The climate crisis means that every possible effort needs to be made not to use energy unnecessarily and to be as efficient as possible in its use.
I think there is a hierarchy in how to dry laundry, and I have long thought that tumble dryers should probably be at the bottom of the hierarchy. For those lucky enough to have outside space, using a tumble dryer is a thoroughly bad use of energy, except on really rainy days. I have been a bit of an evangelist about this, to the extent that I have given friends nice wooden clothes pegs as a hint when they are always talking about using their tumble dryers but they have outside space.
Before noble Lords ask, “What about the rainy days?”, I have lived nearly all my life in the West Country—Somerset and Devon. Even on the wettest of West Country days, it is rare to get three of them consecutively that are such rainy days that you cannot hang the washing out. Hanging out the washing, of course, takes extra time. That is the biggest downside. Besides the big energy saving of using wind and sun to dry things, it makes clothes last longer, in my opinion.
My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to speak in the gap. I want first of all to join with the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, in her remarks about the incident in north Belfast—the area I had the honour to represent in the other place for almost 20 years—and totally endorse what she said about that horrific incident. I also want to congratulate her on bringing this SI debate forward, because without this regret Motion we would not be able to debate the matter and hear the contributions of noble Lords.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked what this was about in terms of Northern Ireland. Paragraph 13.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum states that this SI
“does … relate to the withdrawal of the UK from the EU”.
On its relevance to Northern Ireland, paragraph 4.2 states that it is bringing the law
“into line with Great Britain’s requirements … This alignment is intended to maintain regulatory consistency with the European Union, as well as Northern Ireland further to the Windsor Framework Agreement”.
So it is relevant, as set out in the Government’s Explanatory Memorandum, because otherwise they would not have mentioned those issues. Of course it is relevant, because this legislation has been the law in Northern Ireland since 4 March 2025. Nobody in Stormont debated it, nobody in the other place debated it, and nobody in this House debated it, but it has been the law in part of the United Kingdom for many months—for over a year.
My Lords, I, too, begin by sending our thoughts to the victim and his family in north Belfast. I believe we have an Urgent Question on this matter tomorrow, and we will be able to express our thoughts more fully at that time.
I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for allowing us to have this debate today. As I have said in previous such debates, it is very important that Parliament has an opportunity to debate these matters. However, I also welcome the introduction of speaking lists for regret Motions. Although it is important that we debate these matters, it is equally important that the time allocated to them is proportionate and representative of a cross-section of views from across this House.
These regulations seek to ensure that in future, tumble dryers are more energy-efficient heat pump models, and that consumers have better information about the tumble dryers they are purchasing. More energy-efficient machines will result in lower running costs for the consumer. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has not put his name down to speak today, but I think he would have wanted to ask a question about the additional costs for colder parts of the UK, including my original home country of Scotland, as well as Northern Ireland.
I note that heat pump dryers have been available in the UK since 2010 and that, by the time these regulations were being developed, three-quarters of new tumble dryers sold in the UK were already heat pump models. From these Benches, we support these measures as a step in the right direction—although, as my noble friend Lady Miller has just made clear in her speech, for many people these measures do not go quite far enough.
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If we are to understand this SI, we have to look at it in the wider context and at what happened in March last year. Legislation was then published that banned shops in Northern Ireland buying in any new conventional convector or vented tumble dryers from 1 July that year; they were given until March this year to clear their existing stock. Since then, the only new tumble dryers that Northern Ireland shops have been able to buy in are heat pump tumble dryers. Yesterday, a shop in Northern Ireland explained that it has 11 brand new condenser tumble dryers that it will have to scrap, because to sell them would be illegal. How is that going to be good for the environment?
The Explanatory Notes for last year’s regulations explained simply that:
“Northern Ireland continues to apply EU rules on ecodesign and energy labelling, as per the terms of the Windsor Framework”.
So in Northern Ireland we were bound by EU net-zero legislation under the Windsor Framework, which effectively partitions the United Kingdom, keeping Northern Ireland in the EU. The whole point of leaving the EU—as I thought, certainly—would be to make our own laws without being overruled by a majority of other countries.
Speaking about the matter in this House on 26 March last year, I highlighted how the EU legislation on tumble dryers was being imposed without even consulting people in Northern Ireland or businesses. It had to be imposed because the Windsor Framework required it. I said then that it demonstrated how the failure to deliver leaving the European Union for Northern Ireland
“is actually undermining Brexit for the whole of the United Kingdom, aligning Great Britain—drip, drip, drip—with Northern Ireland and thus the European Union”.—[Official Report, 26/3/25; col. 1778.]
In fact, the Minister in the other place said that exactly. She said that
“it is very likely that Great Britain will seek to meet similar standards … Our intention is to apply the measures on a UK-wide basis and maintain the UK’s internal market”.—[Official Report, Commons, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 31/3/25; col. 4.]
In this context, we should be clear that the reason why the sale of new vented and condenser tumble dryers is being banned in England, Wales and Scotland is that the EU has already banned it in Northern Ireland and having the ban in one part of the UK but not the other does not work if we are to maintain any semblance of a common market across the whole UK. But of course we must see that what is really going on is an object lesson in relation to the problems with the Government’s much more ambitious dynamic alignment project to avoid divergence with Northern Ireland, as set out in the European partnership Bill. This approach is fatally flawed for Great Britain, as it is for Northern Ireland. Rather than respecting the once-in-a-generation referendum, the legislation before us today, set out in the broader context of the European partnership Bill, is part of a larger effort to not only undermine that vote, in the sense of using divergence problems flowing from the denial of leaving in one part of the UK to undermine Brexit across the rest of the country. It is actually almost worse than rejoining the EU.
The Minister might tell me—I expect he will—that I should be pleased that we now have a Government committed to bringing GB into alignment with the EU, because this will help mitigate GB-Northern Ireland border difficulties. Quite apart from the fact that it will not mitigate the customs border in any way, while an SPS deal might reduce frictions it will not remove the SPS border because their proposed SPS deal is a GB deal and not a UK deal. I hope the Minister will explain that, because what we need is a more profound and patriotic way of looking at this. In this context, if anyone thinks that the answer to the injustice of the disenfranchisement now of the people of Northern Ireland is to have that same disenfranchisement for the people of the rest of the United Kingdom, I am not quite sure that they have not lost the plot.
The difficulty with this particular set of regulations has been further compounded by the fact that the Government have brought them forward on the proposed basis that they become law by default, with no parliamentary debate or vote, under the negative assent procedure. The only reason we are having this debate today is my Motion. Even in the democratically elected House next door—the other place—there is now a prayer standing in the name of some 46 Members, including the leader of the Opposition, the right honourable Kemi Badenoch. It still has not been given time for a debate. Six parties have signed it including, I am pleased to see, a Labour MP.
Finally, I want to point out that there is now a very real shortage of new tumble dryers in Northern Ireland, because Northern Ireland is having to get its heat-pump tumble dryers from Great Britain, yet a significant portion of those tumble dryers currently being sold in Great Britain are not allowed to be sold in Northern Ireland. There seems to be confusion about why this is, with some suggesting that to be legal in Northern Ireland they must contain a certain kind of gas, while others have suggested that there are some heat-pump tumble dryers on the market in GB that do not meet the 80% condenser efficiency minimum required by the EU regulation. Whatever the reason, though, the advice last week was that the new heat-pump tumble dryers meeting the Northern Ireland specification will not be ready to be shipped to Northern Ireland from GB until the autumn.
I have five specific short questions for the Minister. Will the GB market be ready to provide the requisite number of heat-pump tumble dryers—
My second question is: do we believe in net zero? I have to say I despair at the mover of the Motion’s idea that this is something about a nanny state. I and the majority of people in this country believe this is about saving the planet. To attain net zero, there are big steps we have to take in terms of power generation, but achieving our net-zero target requires myriad tiny steps. This is one of them. This is a small step on the way to saving the planet. For those of us who are concerned about the future, these regulations are an essential element in the overall policy.
The question has been raised of how significant these regulations are. Unfortunately, the regret Motion is simply wrong. It refers to
“increased costs and lower efficacy associated with heat pump tumble dryers”.
As far as cost is concerned, there are costs involved in the switch, as set out in the impact statement, but these are initial costs that are more than outweighed by the subsequent savings in running costs.
Page 9 of the impact statement sets out quite clearly:
“While costs in the early years of the policy are positive, due to the increased cost of purchasing Heat Pump tumble dryers over other technologies (around £40 on average), in later years of the policy costs turn negative as the much longer lifetime of heat pump tumble dryers mean consumers will not need to replace them as often … As energy bill savings (as well as Carbon and air quality savings) are realised across the policy lifetime, in addition to the product cost savings, overall NPV”—
net present value—
“is positive”.
I have done some research on tumble dryers. I looked at a recent edition of Which? from the Consumers’ Association. I do not think it has a particular axe to grind on this issue, and the magazine confirms the impact statement. Which? found that the heat pump versions cost less than half as much to run as the old-fashioned versions. Most tellingly, all the tumble dryers in the Which? report rated as best buys were heat pump versions. They work better, as assessed by the Consumers’ Association. I have a couple more quotes—I have got the time—from Which?:
“Heat pump tumble dryers recycle warm air for better efficiency. This makes them by far the most energy-efficient of all the tumble dryer types available”.
These are not theoretical advantages; they are there and endorsed by Which?
It appears, as the impact assessment also suggests, that the cost differential is declining. The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, asserted there was a big cost difference but did not provide us with any figures. Well, they are all there in the Which? report. The cheapest best buy heat pump tumble dryer was £299—only £60 more than the cheapest condenser version, which had a significantly lower test score. In other words, that £60 in the figures calculated by Which? will be recouped in less than a year. Heat pump tumble dryers get higher ratings from Which? and it has assessed that they are cheaper to run within a year. I think we really need to look at this in a sensible way, rather than trying to make it a Brexit or even a Northern Ireland issue.
Before I turn to the detail of the SI, I must ask the Minister whether the Government will consider bringing in a provision for flat owners and renters that would make freeholders not unreasonably withhold the right to dry laundry on balconies or in courtyards. I declare an interest as a flat owner where the freeholder forbids laundry to be dried outside, even though we have a nice courtyard where the breeze would dry it. The Government recently brought in the right for people to request to have pets, which should not be unreasonably withheld. I hope that the Minister can have a look at whether freeholders might be asked—or it might even be legislated for—not to unreasonably withhold the right to hang your laundry out. That is the first thing that you should be doing if you possibly can.
One thing that really surprised me in this SI, when I read through the comparisons, was how a heated airer is not very efficient compared with a heat pump tumble dryer. The heat pump tumble dryer is the most energy efficient overall. There are 17 million tumble dryers in the UK, and they account for 2% to 3% of UK energy use. With heated airers, you sometimes need to run a dehumidifier alongside them, and that might add 0.2 kilowatts to 1 kilowatt during the drying period. With that, the combined energy is often similar to or lower than a conventional condenser dryer but not lower than a heat pump dryer. It is quite clear that the heat pump dryers really are the way to go.
A good reason to do it sooner—and I am glad that the date is set for pretty soon—is that we do not want to become a dumping ground for the manufacturers of the old design of less efficient dryers when the EU is no longer a possible market.
In conclusion, heat pump tumble dryers use much less energy. They are better for people’s household bills and, over the 20 years, the impact assessment says that there would be a household saving of about £910 per household. But actually the upfront costs when you buy the new heat pump tumble dryer would be paid off in about two years. All in all, there is everything to recommend this SI, and nothing against it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, has raised important issues about the expense and the extra costs, and I hope the Minister will respond. But whatever your views on this SI, whether you think it is a good thing or a bad thing in substance, the important point is that people in Great Britain have the opportunity to debate it and decide. In Northern Ireland, we are not afforded that luxury at all. It has been imposed upon us—and that is the point the noble Baroness has sought to bring forward.
It is a matter that should be of fundamental concern to every democrat in the United Kingdom, not just those in Northern Ireland. It should concern legislators in Northern Ireland, it should concern legislators elected to the other place, and it should concern us here. Why on earth do people want a situation where a form of colonialism is going on? This SI affords us the opportunity to bring that out.
As for aligning, I have the utmost respect for what the noble Baroness who spoke previously said, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, pointed out, aligning piecemeal, bit by bit, here and there, does not solve the problem of the trade arrangements with Northern Ireland. It leaves in place the customs barrier and the distinct situation whereby Northern Ireland is subject to laws across 300 areas of our economy and wider, made by a foreign political entity in its interest and imposed on the people of Northern Ireland.
I congratulate the noble Baroness and thank her for bringing this matter to our attention.
The regret Motion from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, raises two points of concern: on the process, that is to say, the fact that Great Britain is aligning itself with the EU’s legislation on tumble dryers, and on the substance of the statutory instrument itself, which she has said will cost consumers more. I shall take each of these points in turn, starting with the substance of the regulations.
Tumble dryers consume around 9% of domestic energy consumption, so a reduction of energy usage will have a substantial impact. Heat pump dryers are not only more energy efficient but have a longer lifespan, as others have said, potentially saving the consumer more than £900 in terms of energy usage across the machine’s lifespan. I hope that the Minister will confirm these figures in his closing remarks. Any additional upfront costs of purchasing these new, more energy-efficient machines should be offset against the savings to the consumer in energy consumption.
I have to say that I have never understood why people are against progress towards using less energy at a time when energy is becoming increasingly expensive. It should also be noted that these measures apply only for future purchases. People can continue to use and repair their current tumble dryers until they need new ones. I am somebody who has lived in flats and apartments for the last 30 years and I have had to use tumble dryers as outside drying options are not available: drying clothes on balconies is frequently prohibited and drying spaces in shared garden spaces, as my noble friend Lady Miller has said, are often just not available. People who rent flats are usually going to be much more concerned about the running costs than about the purchasing costs of tumble dryers.
I welcome the detailed impact assessment carried out on these regulations last year, but we query why the consultation took place between 17 July and 14 August last summer. Can the Minister say why they chose a time when many people might have been on their summer holiday? Can he say a little more about the consultation process, including whether consultation took place with representatives across the whole of the United Kingdom?
Tumble dryers can be a major cause of house fires. Can the Minister give reassurances that the heat pump household tumble dryers are less likely to be a fire hazard than older types of machine, such as gas, air vented or condenser models? It is not strictly to do with this statutory instrument, but I would also be very interested if the Minister could say a little about recycling measures for old domestic tumble dryers.
Although these regulations are not covered by the three policy areas of dynamic alignment, as such, they are an example of the kinds of issues we will face if and when we align more closely with the EU. That brings me to the second point in the regret Motion from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey: namely, the process of aligning on these matters with the EU. In previous regret Motions, many colleagues from Northern Ireland have understandably expressed their concern about Northern Ireland being treated differently from the rest of the UK through the Northern Ireland protocol and then the Windsor Framework, and about creating a border in effect across the Irish Sea.
Speaking to the Conservative Post about the regulations we are debating this evening, Jim Allister MP, a firm opponent of the Windsor Framework, said in April this year:
“Although the tumble dryer legislation is not formally part of the Reset, it reflects its underlying logic, bringing Great Britain into alignment with EU law, partly to prevent divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain”.
In that sense, I agree with my noble friend Lady Miller that it is not entirely clear why those who oppose the Windsor Framework should not welcome these provisions. The whole UK will be following these EU proposals, which will reduce energy consumption by our citizens.
As we move towards greater dynamic alignment, I believe it is increasingly important that both your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons have a role in decision-shaping, as well as parliamentary oversight of the Government, in this process. When we were still in the EU, we had a direct role in decision-shaping, through our participation in the EU institutions. These are, no doubt, matters which we shall return to—over many hours, I am sure—in the EU partnership Bill, but it would be very useful to hear from the Minister what progress is being made in his department on how we can feed more effectively into the decision-shaping process as we align more with the European Union.