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In recent weeks, the cost of UK border controls on UK businesses have begun to hit home with the arrival of the first invoices for port checks and inspections at the point of entry.
This is causing concern in government about the risk of food price inflation reemerging after several months of decline and it has been reported that controls on EU fruit and vegetables entering the UK, due to come in in January next year, will be postponed again until July.
Fruit and vegetables have been operating under an easement, which effectively excludes them from the same import procedures that all other goods of animal and plant origin are subject to.
This comes as work has commenced on a purpose-built border control facility at the port of Holyhead in north Wales, which is the point of entry to the UK for goods travelling from Dublin.
It is expected to be operational some time next year, at which point inspections on goods entering the UK from Ireland will be regularised.
Until then, Irish goods are subject to random inspections, which, in practice, means that that there are less checks than is the case for goods entering the UK via ports in the southeast from mainland Europe.
When the inspection facility at Holyhead is operational, it is expected that trucks in transit through the port will be subject to the same charges as currently applied in Dover and other east coast ports.
That is a cost that will be carried by the transporters in the first instance, but, ultimately, the cost will find its way to the products that are in the trucks.
Border control costs
Over the past month, the first invoices for what is described as the “common user charge” have begun arriving with importers of animal and plant products in the UK through the ports that are carrying out inspections.
They were supposed to cost a maximum of £145 (€172) per truck entering the UK from the EU, but the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) has claimed that this could in fact be as high as £870 (€1,035), depending on the product lines and consignments on the truck.
Their trade policy adviser Peter Hardwick says that this is in fact a tax to pay for what he describes as an “over-engineered project to inspect 15% to 30% of consignments, when another department was already under instruction to come up with a border operating model based on checks of around 2% of consignments”.
A purpose-built facility was established outside the port of Dover specifically to undertake inspections in order to avoid congestion in the port. The BMPA has also highlighted that the charge applies whether or not the incoming trucks are sent to the new facility or not for checking, which it refers to as a “white elephant”.
As well as the port charges, Logistics UK has recently published research that claims delays with the new European entry system could cost up to £1,100 (€1,310) per truck, which it calculates to be an overall cost of £400m (€476m) annually. This is in addition to the port charges.
Comment
Currently, Irish meat and dairy exports to the UK aren’t subject to the common user charge, but this will change once the new inspection facilities are operational in Holyhead.
That is a cost that ultimately has to be covered by the kilo of meat or litre of milk that is being shipped and extra costs anywhere in the supply chain are bad news for farmers.
The best hope is that the current UK government follows through on its willingness to have a veterinary agreement with the EU which was rejected by its predecessors.
This would return many of the benefits enjoyed by traders of animal and plant origin goods during the UK membership of the single market and would remove the need for these additional inspection charges.
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