Part 2 created government powers to regulate the safety of consumer products through Statutory Instruments.

[3] Section 2 imposes civil liability in tort for damage caused wholly or partly by a defect in a product.

[5] The original Act did not apply to unprocessed game or agricultural produce (s.2(4)) but this exception was repealed on 4 December 2000 to comply with EU Directive 1999/34/EC which was enacted because of fears over BSE.

[6][7][8] Section 3 defines a "defect" as being present when "the safety of the product is not such as persons generally are entitled to expect".

This pattern is common in other EU member states and research indicates that most claims are settled out of court.

[21] Section 11 gives the Secretary of State, as of 2021[update] the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the power to make, after consultation, regulations by way of Statutory Instrument to ensure that: Regulations under this section cannot be made to apply to (s.11(7)): Every weights and measures authority in England, Wales and Scotland and every Northern Ireland district council has a duty to enforce, as an enforcement authority, the safety provisions in addition to the law on misleading price indications although these duties can be delegated by the Secretary of State (s.27).

Breach of regulations is a crime, punishable on summary conviction by up to 6 months' imprisonment and a fine of up to level 5 on the standard scale (s.12).

Breach of any such notice is a crime, punishable on summary conviction by up to 3 months' imprisonment and a fine of up to level 5 on the standard scale (ss.13(4), 14(6)).

The Act created a crime of giving a misleading price indication in Part III, where a person, in the course of business gives, by any means whatever, to a consumer an indication that is misleading as to the price at which any of the following is available (s.20) [note that Part III of the Act was repealed by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008]: An offender can be sentenced, on summary conviction to a fine of up to the statutory maximum for Magistrates' Courts or, on conviction on indictment in the Crown Court to an unlimited fine (s.20(4)).