Full custom checks by the end of October 2024.

 

The gov­ern­ment set out pro­pos­als yes­ter­day to intro­duce complete cus­toms checks on goods enter­ing Bri­tain from the EU by the end of Octo­ber 2024, more than three-and-a-half years after ori­gin­ally planned.

While the new rules are required by Bri­tain’s post-Brexit trade agree­ment with the EU, their intro­duc­tion has been delayed repeatedly since the UK offi­cially with­drew from the bloc on Janu­ary 31, 2020, with min­is­ters fear­ing they could cre­ate unac­cept­able delays at Chan­nel ports and other entry points.

The pro­pos­als announced yes­ter­day was designed to address these con­cerns, with stripped-back plans that included car­ry­ing out checks away from ports to avoid caus­ing dis­rup­tion and the launch of a pilot trus­ted trader scheme to sim­plify pro­cesses and allow reg­u­lar import­ers to avoid full cus­toms inspec­tions.

It was also pro­posed that goods be ranked accord­ing to their level of risk to human, animal or plant health.

«Our pro­pos­als strike a bal­ance between giv­ing con­sumers and busi­nesses con­fid­ence while redu­cing the costs and fric­tion for busi­nesses,» she said.

Lord Richard Benyon, bio­se­c­ur­ity min­is­ter, said it was «vital» the UK had strong bor­ders in place. «Invas­ive dis­eases could cost our farms and busi­nesses bil­lions of pounds, threaten our food safety and break con­fid­ence in UK exports around the world,» he said.

The National Farm­ers Union wel­comed the pro­pos­als. «For the past three years, our farm­ers have faced the full gamut of EU con­trols on our exports while the EU has enjoyed con­tin­ued easy access to the UK mar­ket­place,» said the NFU’s pres­id­ent, Minette Bat­ters.

But Shane Bren­nan, chief exec­ut­ive of the Cold Chain Fed­er­a­tion, rep­res­ent­ing refri­ger­ated food traders, poin­ted out that when sim­ilar cus­toms checks were brought in on goods flow­ing from the UK to the EU, the increased bur­eau­cracy forced many smal­ler UK busi­nesses to stop export­ing. «There’s noth­ing in what is pro­posed in this model that sug­gests we won’t have the same exper­i­ence com­ing the other way,» Bren­nan said.

Andrew Opie, dir­ector of food and secur­ity for the Brit­ish Retail Con­sor­tium, the retail trade body, said it was «imper­at­ive» that the gov­ern­ment stepped up its engage­ment with retail­ers and their European sup­pli­ers to avoid dis­rup­tion.

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