United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (Exclusions from Market Access Principles: Glue Traps) Regulations 2025

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (Exclusions from Market Access Principles: Glue Traps) Regulations 2025.

My Lords, the regulations the Committee is being asked to consider were laid before the House on 1 December 2025. The instrument makes an exclusion to the market access principles of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020—also known as the UKIM Act, for convenience—for legislation prohibiting the sale of glue traps. I will first set out the background of what the UKIM Act does, as well as what a glue trap is, before turning to the reasons why it is necessary to bring forward this statutory instrument.

The United Kingdom Internal Market Act aims to create a seamless internal market across the UK by removing trade barriers to ensure that goods and services can move freely. This is facilitated by the UKIM market access principles: the mutual recognition principle and the non-discrimination principle. It is the former that concerns us today. The mutual recognition principle means that goods that meet one UK nation’s rules can be sold in the other nations without having to comply with any additional requirements that would otherwise apply to the sale. Excluding glue traps from the market access principles means that those principles will not apply to any legislation that prohibits the sale of glue traps.

For the sake of clarity, a glue trap is a board, often made of cardboard or plastic, on to which a non-drying glue is applied. It is placed on flat surfaces so that small rodents, such as rats or mice, will walk on to them and become unable to escape as their fur or limbs get stuck to the glue. They may then suffer from torn skin, broken limbs and hair removal, and they die a slow and painful death from suffocation, starvation, exhaustion and even self–mutilation. Despite concerns that glue traps are inhumane, until recent changes to legislation in 2022 in England and in 2023 in Wales, glue traps were commonly used across Britain to catch rats and mice in households and commercial premises.

In the UK, we are committed to high standards of animal welfare, but we recognise that devolution means that each Administration may pursue shared goals in different ways. For example, in Wales, the use of glue traps is strictly prohibited. In England, the previous Government regulated glue traps so that they may be legally used only by pest controllers under licence to preserve public health or safety when there is no other satisfactory solution, such as in hospital theatres or inside aircraft. In Northern Ireland, there are no restrictions on using glue traps, and we are not aware of any plans to change that.

In 2024, the Scottish Government legislated to ban the use, possession and sale of glue traps in Scotland via the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act. However, unless glue traps are added to Schedule 1 to the UKIM Act, to exclude them from the application of the UKIM market access principles, the Scottish Government’s ban on the sale of glue traps in Scotland will not be fully enforceable. This is because glue traps produced in or imported into England, Wales and Northern Ireland will continue to benefit from the mutual recognition principle and could still be sold in Scotland.