London, UK: The travel chaos at Dover at the start of the Easter weekend was an obvious manifestation of post-Brexit life and the burdens it places on UK citizens.
The problem was simple: additional passport checks on every non-EU person delayed ferry boarding. And it will only get worse becuase from November EU rules require fingerprinting and biometric checks on every non-EU traveller.
But hiddden, for the time being, are the consequences of a new raft of of checks on imports. For the last two years the UK has avoided disruption to food and wider supply chains by not imposing any.
While UK companies have faced full third-country customs processes on goods exported to the EU, European companies selling into the UK have enjoyed a practically free ride. That will change in October, after the Cabinet Office confirmed that a new customs regime will finally be introduced almost three years after it was first scheduled.
The UK government has outlined what is calls a “streamlined” border process for all imports to the UK. It proposes reduced checks for “low-risk” goods, a “trusted trader” model for regular importers, and physical checks will take place away from ports at border control posts, built at great cost for the original January 2021 deadline but largely unused since.
Some business groups have welcomed the commitment to simplify processes that have been hanging over British trade since 2016, but in the food trade there is deep disquiet about the additional and more onerous paperwork still be required for food and animal imports.
To receive a sanitary and phytosanitary certificate – the regime that ensures food safety – EU exporters will for the first time need a vet to sign off shipments at the point of origin. That means French cheese and Spanish cured meats will all need a local vet to sign them off, a process that could add prohibitive costs to small producers.
When UK companies faced the same requirements in 2021 the shortage of vets, and the £300 fee for every signature, forced some to stop exporting.
The UK is a big market, but the recent tomato and salad vegetable shortage shows that European sellers have plenty of alternatives if the costs of getting produce here is too high.
The government says the new system will be phased in, with paperwork required from October before physical checks begin in January next year. In reality, the cost of the paperwork is likely to be the pinch point and we cannot know how exporters will react.
Ministers promise the new system will be “world-class”, and even cite an annual £400m saving for business compared with the notional cost of the original plan which never even happened.
A more realistic comparison is between the current regime, which for EU exporters means the same minimal processes as before Brexit, and a new system with new processes and new costs that have never been tried before.
Little wonder then that the Cold Chain Federation warns of the government’s proposals for new food controls on all goods imported to the UK from the EU will trigger shortages and price inflation.
