AMDEA has been reported to have attended the House of Commons at the end of last month to promote policy recommendations for government on the theme of on the theme of ‘Appliances bringing home the circular economy’.
We of course, have thoughts.
The recommendations that AMDEA (Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Electrical Appliances) made were as follows:
– Incentivise householders to repair by lowering VAT on spare parts and labour.
This Is a topic that has come up many times in the past and as we explain in this article it might not be the solution that many think it to be. We’re not saying it’s a complete non-starter but, it’s not a magic bullet.
– Encourage a new generation of professional repairers by fully allocating employers’ Growth and Skills Levy contributions to more flexible, employer-driven, apprenticeships.
This we’re not familiar with but, none of the smaller repairers would normally get involved in such a thing.
What we will say is that, most of the good, multi-brand techs came from the independent sector because, in that arena you normally have to deal with a bunch of different brands. Because many are now all in-house, you don’t see as many repairer techs being trained up in the independent sector.
That and of course the rates don’t allow enough to carry trainees.
If the large in-house repair organisations need to train staff then surely that’s a commercial problem and they should either adjust the pricing of their products or services to allow for them to train people up. Surely, that’s what generally happens in most industries.
– Promote co-ordinated consumer messaging on repairability with the responsible stakeholders, product groups and neighbouring markets.
– Strengthen the ‘Repair or Replace?’ evidence base by employing robust scientific methodology to identify when replacement by efficient, new technology becomes preferable to repair.
These two we’re putting together and right after the training because they’re all interlinked in one way or another.
People are getting the message on Right To Repair (R2R). They are demanding more and more in respect of rights to repair, quite rightly in our view as we’ve made plain for years.
Where we have a bit f an issue is that, some AMDEA members are part of if not, the problem with this as they do not and seemingly will not, allow independent repairers or end consumers to have access to critical information that allow repairs to be carried out
It seems a bit odd to wish other industries as well as the appliance industry to promote R2R ideals or to seek a means to identify when products should be replaced over repaired when in a good many cases, the makers calling for this hold all the cards in respect of the information.
This, on the face of it, looks like being a case of the fox guarding the hen house.
The topic was recently brought up again by the Whitegoods Trade Association in an article you can read on their site here.
– Lead the technology leap by enabling UK business to engage in the establishment of an efficient and simplified regulatory framework, avoiding duplication across departments to ensure timely compatible international regulations.
This saves makers money and it’s actually very sensible that our legislation in the UK aligns with others in the same region, I.e. Europe.
Whilst not politically popular with some groups, deviation from standards set by the EU can prove costly to makers and those costs will be passed on to consumers so, it’s costing the public more the more the UK deviates.
– Put safety first by providing sufficient powers and resources to UK regulatory enforcement officers to deter unsafe spare parts being marketed online and on the high street.
Uhm, what “unsafe spare parts” would that be then?
This is a area that we know a lot about, some might even say that we are expert in spare parts and apart from a scant few way back in time we’ve not seen what we’d call an “unsafe” spare part in forever!
And, who determines a part to be “unsafe”?
We suspect this is more about trying to stop either compatible spare parts that are safe enough, if some aren’t the best quality but they save consumers boatloads of money as some things, especially filters and other consumable items, border on out and out rip off prices from some makers. Hence, they would be very interested in stopping any competition as they’d make out like bandits if there was no competition.
But out of tens of thousands of orders and spare parts we’ve not seen any real evidence of any that we’d call “unsafe”.
Lots we don’t recommend or sell as they’re, well, rubbish… but that’s a different thing entirely.
– Keep consumer prices down by revising the dual burden of the Plastic Packaging Tax and the Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility which adds complexity and cost, risking price increases for consumers
This is an area we’re not involved in at all so we have no real comments.
