Local MP Luke Hall is campaigning in Parliament to highlight the potential dangers of children’s fancy dress costumes this Halloween.
Currently, the law classes children’s fancy dress costumes as ‘toys’ rather than ‘clothes’, allowing them to undergo far less rigorous safety tests than normal items of clothing.
Luke Hall has welcomed the steps being made by Sainsbury’s, and other leading supermarkets to introduce more stringent testing following a campaign by the host of BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, Claudia Winkleman, after her eight year old daughter was seriously burned while wearing a witches’ outfit.
With Halloween just around the corner local MP Luke Hall is highlighting the danger that open flames can do to fancy dress.
In a statement he said;
“I know that many children in our community enjoy dressing up over the Halloween period, so I am campaigning to raise awareness of the dangers of open flames to fancy dress.”
“I’m delighted that last year funding was made available for Trading Standards to conduct spot checks on hundreds of retailers to ensure that costumes meet safety standards. I also applaud Sainsbury’s and other supermarkets for introducing more stringent safety checks and would now call on all others to follow suit.
“With Halloween just around the corner, the key thing now is to spread the message far and wide to parents about these dangers.”
Colin Bradford, Head of Non-Food Technical and Ethical Practices at Sainsbury’s, said:
“Many retailers are working extremely hard to address this issue. Today’s event was a great opportunity to raise awareness of fire safety at Halloween and share our own approach, which has led to the introduction of a more stringent approach to product development and flammability testing that exceeds all current legal requirements.”