Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Ferguson): I welcome Mark McGregor, head of the trade and Windsor framework branch in the Department for the Economy. I ask Mark to brief the Committee when he is ready.

Mr Mark McGregor (Department for the Economy): Thank you, Chair, and I thank the Committee for asking me to return to give evidence as part of its inquiry. Nothing has changed in relation to the proposal since I last appeared before the Committee on Thursday 6 August. The Department's written evidence, therefore, remains unchanged. We also had no outstanding questions from the previous evidence session to address today.

Before I briefly summarise the proposal, it may be helpful if I restated the position on responsibility. Machinery product safety policy is a reserved matter. The UK Government (UKG) policy lead is the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST), formerly the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), principally through the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS). DFE has no subject matter policy expertise in machinery regulation. Our role has been to support the Committee in its scrutiny process, as set out in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, concerning matters with Windsor framework relevance, and to act as a conduit for the relevant UKG policy Department.

The matter before the Committee today is narrow. Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 is wider legislation concerning artificial intelligence, but the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee (WFDSC) notification relates only to article 3. Article 3 amends regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery, which applies in Northern Ireland under the Windsor framework. In summary, article 3 moves the treatment of high-risk AI that is used as a safety component in machinery into the machinery product safety framework. It is intended to avoid duplication with the EU AI act and the machinery regulation whilst maintaining an equivalent high level of protection for machinery safety. It also requires the European Commission to add relevant AI-related health and safety requirements to its machinery regulation by delegated legislation so that those requirements can apply by 2 August 2028. The proposal does not, through the notification, create a wider or free-standing AI regulatory regime for Northern Ireland. Its effect is confined to machinery and those AI systems that are high-risk because they perform a safety function in machinery or are themselves machinery products.

I will give a little bit more detail on article 3. There are three paragraphs in article 3. Article 3(1) amends article 8 of the machinery regulation. It requires the Commission to adopt delegated acts to add health and safety requirements for high-risk AI systems that are safety components in machinery or are themselves machinery products. The requirements must reflect the relevant high-risk AI obligations, including risk management; data governance; technical documentation; record-keeping; transparency; human oversight; accuracy; robustness; cybersecurity; quality management; record retention; and post-market monitoring. The delegated acts must maintain a high level of protection that is consistent with the EU AI act and apply by 2 August 2028.

Article 3(2) amends article 20 of the machinery regulation until machinery-specific harmonised standards or common specifications for high-risk AI are available. It ensures compliance with relevant standards or common specifications. That is intended to avoid a standards gap and provide a workable compliance route during the transition.

Article 3(3) amends article 47 of the machinery regulation. It gives the Commission a five-year power from 27 July 2026 to make the delegated acts that are needed under the amended article 8. The delegation can be extended or revoked by the European Parliament or the Council of the European Union. The delegated act will enter into force only if neither institution objects within the specified scrutiny period.

To give an overall summary, when taken together, the provisions establish a sectoral machinery route for safety-related high-risk AI. They replace the substantive AI-related safety requirements in the machinery regulation and create the legal mechanism for the Commission to complete the detailed requirements by 2 August 2028.The overall purpose is the simplification and avoidance of duplicate regulatory requirements rather than the creation of a separate AI regime for Northern Ireland.

Chair, I hope that that is helpful, and I am very happy to take any questions.

The Chairperson (Ms Ferguson): OK. Thank you, Mark. Members, are there any questions?

Mr Buckley: Thank you very much, Mark, and I appreciate your coming before the Committee again.

The papers state that:

What type of machinery products are those relatively few, and what companies are involved in their manufacture and distribution?

Mr McGregor: That is not information that I have with me today. I would have to consult with the Office for Product Safety and Standards. I do not have a detailed list of the machinery that is likely to be in scope. Obviously, AI is an emerging policy area, and the number of products that are within scope is increasing over time. However, I can endeavour to get a response from the Office for Product Safety and Standards and provide that to you in writing.

Mr Buckley: It would be very helpful to know how the regulation would affect local businesses. You may have highlighted this before, but perhaps you could again outline how those changes create differential for competitors in GB, for example.

Mr McGregor: At present, there is no similar or corresponding AI Act or AI legislation in Great Britain. The relevant Department, which is BIST, is engaging in a general product safety review and, as part of that, is addressing AI matters. If the measure were adopted in Northern Ireland, it would come into effect in August 2028. If Great Britain had not adopted similar measures at that stage, the measure would not have the same requirement as Great Britain but would have to comply with the machinery requirements for AI in relation to the Northern Ireland or EU market if they wished to attain market access.

Mr Buckley: OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms Ferguson): No other members want to ask a question, so thank you, Mark.