Hot Spot UK Gov Call for Evidence New Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 UK Adoption

What is it?

As reported in Hot Spot BV002682 the new EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 has entered into force in the European Union and will be a mandatory requirement by 14th January 2027. The UK Government has now launched a call for evidence Machinery safety legislation: call for evidence - GOV.UK. This is a part of the process to decide how the UK should revise the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 which could involve adopting the new EU regulation to retain alignment or adopting different divergent regulations.

A major aspect of the Call for Evidence is likely to be discussion around the potential cost to UK businesses and the justification for diverging from EU legislation. Diverging regulations will potentially create barriers to UK business accessing major export markets along with implications on global supply chains for materials and components into GB.

The call for evidence process will end on 20th October 2025 and includes a series of roundtable sessions being held in Edinburgh, Manchester, Cardiff, Birmingham and London to allow stakeholders to express their views. Members who wished to attend any of these sessions were asked to submit a form requesting their interest to attend by Thursday 7th August.

Why is it Important?

Like the old Machinery Directive the new Machinery Regulation is not applicable to manually operated valves and, as before, it generally only applies to valves and actuators when they are part of a completed machine. The main requirements for BVAA members relate to the supply of adequate installation and operating information to the party who is assembling the products into the final machine to pass on any necessary information to the end user to allow safe operation.

The major changes from the Machinery Directive that are contained in the Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 are as follows:

• Introducing specific HSE requirements on “machine learning” technologies related to safety performance.
• New requirement for third party conformity assessment for specific categories of machinery.
• Allowing the use of Common Specifications as a means to demonstrate compliance where Harmonised Standards are not available.
• Allowing safety information to be provided via digital technology such as QR codes etc.
• Introduction of specific Importer and Distributor requirements in line with the New Legislative Framework (NLF).

Continuous Improvement - Did we miss anything?

Hot Spots are intended to alert members and provide a brief overview of new standards, activities or procedures that are being introduced in the industry. If there is key information missing that would be helpful, please let us know so that we can improve our future service.

Please Note: This Hotspot is for information purposes, and we invite comments from BVAA members only. Please also note that at time of publication ballots may be closed. For more information, please contact the Secretariat.

BVAA Members: Did you know we have a hotspot tab on the BVAA website? Head over to www.bvaa.org.uk/login-here.asp and log into the member only area. You then need to select ‘Hotspots’ for the latest. For information on how to access the member only area of the website please contact jane@bvaa.org.uk. 

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