New post-Brexit border controls to cost businesses £330m a year
The government claims the system provides "savings" on the previously proposed model, but a Labour MP says it wouldn't be needed in the first place if it wasn't for Brexit.
New post-Brexit border controls on animal and plant products imported from the EU will cost businesses £330m a year in extra charges, the government has admitted.
Lucy Neville-Rolfe, a minister of state in the Cabinet Office, confirmed the figure in a letter seen by Sky News to Labour MP Stella Creasy, who chairs the Labour Movement for Europe.
On the costs of the new Border Trade Operating Model (BTOM), which will be phased in from January 2024, Baroness Neville-Rolfe wrote: "It will depend greatly on how businesses adapt their business models and supply chains to integrate the new controls regimes. We estimate these new costs of the model at £330m pa [per annum] overall, across all EU imports."
It comes ahead of a speech by Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch at the Conservative Party Conference on Monday, who will claim opponents of Brexit are "relentlessly wanting to talk down our country" and insist that while there are challenges posed by Brexit, "we are working to fix them".
From January, European businesses exporting plant and animal products to the UK will have to submit extra paperwork known as health certificates, with physical checks costing up to £43 coming into force from April.
The checks - which have been delayed repeatedly since the Brexit deal came into effect in January 2021 - were due to start this month but were pushed back in August amid warnings the strategy risks further pushing up food prices.
The government has admitted the new system will add to inflation, but said this will be "minimal" at less than 0.2% over three years.
In her letter, Baroness Neville-Rolfe said the checks were required because since the UK left the EU "we have not had full biosecurity checks in place", meaning it has become "more challenging to intervene to combat threats to animal, plant and human health".
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She pointed to the spread of pests and diseases across Europe - such as African Swine Fever - adding it would be "dangerous to underestimate the huge costs both to lives and livelihoods that an outbreak of these diseases could cause to the UK".
The cabinet minister went on to to say that "around half" of the £330m figure is estimated to be on health certification, but this was a "saving" of £520m compared to a previous model that was going to be introduced in 2022.
However Ms Creasy suggested this was disingenuous as if the UK had not left the EU there would be no extra costs at all.
news.sky.com
