Citation and commencement

1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Weights and Measures (Standards Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005 and shall come into operation on 1st March 2005.

Amendment of Regulations

2.  The Regulations specified in the Schedule shall be amended as set out therein.

Regulation 2

SCHEDULERegulations Amended

1.  In regulation 55A of the Measuring Equipment (Liquid Fuel by Road Tanker) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1984(4), for paragraph (3) there shall be substituted the following paragraph –

“(3) A body is an “approved body” for the purposes of this regulation if it is a body in a member State or in an EEA State which has responsibility in that State for metrological control of measuring equipment on road tankers or is a laboratory which has been accredited for the purposes of testing measuring equipment on road tankers in a member State or in an EEA State as being a body which conforms with the criteria set out in BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000(5).”.

2.  The Weighing Equipment (Filling and Discontinuous Totalising Automatic Weighing Machines) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1986(6) shall be amended as follows –

(i)for paragraph (3) of regulation 23A there shall be substituted the following paragraph:

“(3) A body is an “approved body” for the purposes of this regulation if it is a body in a member State or in an EEA State which has responsibility in that State for metrological control of filling machines or is a laboratory which has been accredited for the purposes of testing filling machines in a member State or in an EEA State as being a body which conforms with the criteria set out in BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000.”; and

(ii)for paragraph (3) of regulation 32A there shall be substituted the following paragraph –

“(3) A body is an “approved body” for the purposes of this regulation if it is a body in a member State or in an EEA State which has responsibility in that State for metrological control of discontinuous totalisers or is a laboratory which has been accredited for the purposes of testing discontinuous totalisers in a member State or in an EEA State as being a body which conforms with the criteria set out in BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000.”.

3.  In regulation 22B of the Measuring Equipment (Measures of Length) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1986(7), for paragraph (3) there shall be substituted the following paragraph –

“(3) A body is an “approved body” for the purposes of this regulation if it is a body in a member State or in an EEA State which has responsibility in that State for metrological control of measures of length or is a laboratory which has been accredited for the purposes of testing measures of length in a member State or in an EEA State as being a body which conforms with the criteria set out in BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000.”.

4.  Regulation 19 of the Capacity Serving Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993(8) shall be amended as follows –

(i)in paragraph (1), after the words “member State” there shall be inserted the words “or an EEA State”; and

(ii)for paragraph (3) there shall be substituted the following paragraphs –

“(3) A body is an “approved body” for the purposes of this regulation if it is a body in a member State or in an EEA State which has responsibility in that State for metrological control of capacity serving measures or is a laboratory which has been accredited for the purposes of testing capacity serving measures in a member State or in an EEA State as being a body which conforms with the criteria set out in BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000.

(3A) In this regulation, “EEA State” means a State which is a Contracting Party to the EEA Agreement other than the United Kingdom, and in this paragraph “the EEA Agreement” means the Agreement on the European Economic Area signed at Oporto on 2nd May 1992 as adjusted by the Protocol signed at Brussels on 17th March 1993.”.

5.  In regulation 13 of the Measuring Equipment (Capacity Measures) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998(9), for paragraph (3) there shall be substituted the following paragraph –

“(3) A body is an “approved body” for the purposes of this re gulation if it is a body in a member State or in an EEA State which has responsibility in that State for metrological control of capacity measures or is a laboratory which has been accredited for the purposes of testing capacity measures in a member State or in an EEA State as being a body which conforms with the criteria set out in BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000.”.

6.  In regulation 16 of the Measuring Equipment (Liquid Fuel and Lubricants) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998(10), for paragraph (3) there shall be substituted the following paragraph –

“(3) A body is an “approved body” for the purposes of this regulation if it is a body in a member State or in an EEA State which has responsibility in that State for metrological control of measuring equipment for liquid fuel and lubricants or is a laboratory which has been accredited for the purposes of testing measuring equipment for liquid fuel and lubricants in a member State or in an EEA State as being a body which conforms with the criteria set out in BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000.”.

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations amend references in weights and measures Regulations to the standard EN 45001 which is replaced by a new standard, BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000.

These standards set the minimum requirements for the competence of accredited testing and calibration laboratories that may carry out testing of certain weighing and measuring equipment imported into Northern Ireland. EN 45001 was a European standard prepared by CEN/CENELEC, the European standardisation bodies. Standard BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000, which is a more comprehensive standard, is an international standard prepared by the International Organisation for Standards and the International Electrotechnical Commission. As with the standard EN 45001, BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000 has been approved by CEN/CENELEC as a European standard and has the status of a British Standard.

These Regulations also make it clear that, in the case of each of the Regulations amended, an approved body is a body which has been accredited in relation to the specific product to which those Regulations apply.

BS EN ISO/IEC 17025:2000 is available from any of the sales outlets operated by the British Standards Institute or from the British Standards Institute, Linford Wood, Milton Keynes, MK14 6LE.