The UK and EU have agreed a draft deal to remove post-Brexit checks on food and agriculture exports, BBC News reported, with a 200-page text for a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement circulated to EU nations in Brussels for consideration at a meeting on Wednesday. The deal is the most significant part of the so-called Brexit reset agreed so far, and the government claims the UK economy will eventually see £5.1bn worth of annual benefits.
The agreement, reported separately by The Guardian, would remove checks on imports and exports of food and animal products ranging from sausages and cheese to leather goods and flowers. According to the BBC, exports to the EU of fresh sausages, burgers, shellfish from domestic waters and seed potatoes would be able to resume. It should remove the need for £200 Export Health Certificates, which confirm a product meets the health requirements of the destination country, and end the need for £25 Phytosanitary certificates, which show that plants or plant products are free from pests and diseases. Inspector fees, organic certificates, some port fees and other checks could also be removed, and passports for British pets travelling into the EU would return.
What exporters stand to gain
The cost of certification has been a concrete burden for smaller producers. Jon Walsh, chief executive and co-founder of Bio&Me, which makes granolas, mueslis and yoghurts, told BBC 5 Live that every pallet of yoghurt required a vet inspection costing £140, which meant the company lost money and had to stop exporting. He described shipments of granola and overnight oats being returned, saying it was the same person filling out the same form and yet half would make it through and half would not. William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chamber of Commerce, told the BBC's Today programme that the requirement for Export Health Certificates can add thousands of pounds of costs to each truck carrying goods, in addition to delays at ports and borders. He said business overall thought it was a price worth paying to follow common rules, because companies would benefit from lower costs, reduced delays and increased market access. The BCC has released new analysis of its members' views suggesting options for a closer relationship, saying the current trade relationship is failing to deliver and leaving firms struggling with a thicket of Brexit red tape nearly six years after the UK's exit from the bloc. The Guardian reported that the National Farmers' Union said last month that exports of British food to the EU had collapsed by a third since Brexit, with eggs, chicken and potato products worst hit. It also noted that smaller UK retailers such as delicatessens could return to buying smaller batches of cheese and wines, something that became impossible because of the cost of Brexit checks introduced in 2022.The price of alignment
In return for the removal of checks, the UK is expected to commit to observing and adapting to existing EU regulations on plant, animal and food trade standards, a process called dynamic alignment, according to the BBC. The government has already announced a European Partnerships Bill to provide a legal mechanism for applying new EU rules and regulations, which would also allow the necessary alignments for linking the UK emissions trading scheme with the EU's and save UK exporters from paying the EU's new carbon border tax. The political sensitivity is acute. The BBC reported that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said dynamic alignment would be a red line and would actually take the UK backwards, while Reform UK business spokesman Richard Tice said returning to any form of alignment with Europe would crush Britain's competitiveness and force the UK to surrender sovereignty over trade policy. Liberal Democrat Europe spokesperson Al Pinkerton called the draft deal a patch, not a fix, and called for rejoining the single market and a customs union. There are practical wrinkles. The BBC noted that while UK rules remain mostly aligned with EU ones, England has diverged in some areas, for example on precision breeding of plants, previously known as gene editing, though transition arrangements have been struck while the EU's new regulations come into force. The Guardian reported that the delay is caused by the UK's need to dynamically align British food standards legislation with the EU's, and that although the UK has largely followed EU rules it has diversified in some areas such as fungicides used to help crops grow in British wet weather.Northern Ireland and the wider package
The BBC reported that a food deal will have particular significance for Northern Ireland, radically reducing the impact of the post-Brexit Irish Sea border. Northern Ireland's Brexit deal kept it inside the EU's single market for goods, meaning food products from elsewhere in the UK require paperwork and some physical checks when arriving at Northern Irish ports; a deal would ultimately end those requirements. The Guardian reported that retailers in Northern Ireland will no longer have to label products as not for the EU, a process criticised in the past by big supermarket chains such as Marks & Spencer. Unionist opinion is split. The Guardian reported that Gavin Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist party, said the deal does not go far enough and reflects what he sees as a lack of ambition by the government, while Steve Aiken, the Windsor framework spokesperson for the rival Ulster Unionist party, gave a cautious welcome, saying checks on most agricultural goods coming from the rest of the UK will be significantly, but not completely, reduced. The SPS text sits alongside other draft agreements. The BBC reported that similar texts for deals on emissions trading and a youth travel and work scheme have been circulated alongside a 15-page draft joint statement for UK and EU top leaders, and that the draft agreements will be discussed at a meeting of EU ambassadors called Coreper on Wednesday. The Guardian reported that a wider series of mini-deals expected to be sealed at a UK-EU summit on 20 November would also result in Britain once again contributing to the EU budget as the price of rejoining a single electricity market.Timing and what remains unresolved
The commercial benefit depends heavily on when the deal takes effect. The Guardian reported that the SPS deal, largely agreed in May, will not be implemented until the first quarter of 2028 after the change in UK prime minister caused a six-month delay to the second EU-UK summit, now due on 20 November. It said sources described the 200-page text as settled with no further negotiation, and that Defra had previously expected implementation in May next year but has now briefed industry leaders that it may not arrive until 2028, with a further six-month transition period for a handful of key products such as grains grown this year with fungicides not yet approved in the EU. Speaking during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda, the prime minister said a UK-EU deal could add up to 0.4% extra on GDP, according to the BBC. The BBC also reported that under Andy Burnham, Britain's approach to post-Brexit relations with the EU has shifted significantly, and that Burnham said people in Britain would expect him to take the deal with both hands given where the country has been in recent times. Pressed on whether it would be acceptable for the UK to have its food trade rules made by the EU, he said: "We're not in the EU, therefore we do have to work with them in a different way."Sources and References
- BBC News (bbc.co.uk) — UK and EU agree draft deal to scrap Brexit red tape over food exports
- The Guardian (theguardian.com) — UK and EU agree deal to remove Brexit checks on food and animal products
