Kettles are still not about to be banned by the EU

 

"Now kettles face EU ban" according to the front page of today's Express.

The article itself was more equivocal, saying the EU executive had commissioned a report which "sets out plans to look at the energy usage of a range of items and whether they could be made more efficient".

That's correct - the EU is investigating the energy consumption of various products, and its research might well form the basis of future regulations aimed at improving their impact on the environment.

Limits to the power that can be consumed by vacuum cleaners are the most high profile example of the EU's activity in this area, but the (entirely hypothetical) regulations to kettles won't necessarily take this form.

For example, another option in the case of electric kettles would be to require them to be more durable so that they last longer on average, and fewer need to be manufactured.

There's more detail on this in our factcheck from Monday.