UK admits extra £330m a year in charges for post-Brexit animal and plant imports

Social Media · October 2, 2023

The government has admitted it will cost businesses £330m each year in additional charges when new post-Brexit border controls on animal and plant products imported from the European Union are implemented next year.

Lucy Neville-Rolfe, a minister of state in the Cabinet Office, confirmed the estimated annual cost adding that the UK needs tighter border controls to “protect our international reputation” in a letter to Labour MP Stella Creasy, the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe.

“It will depend greatly on how businesses adapt their business models and supply chains to integrate the new controls regime,” said Baroness Neville-Rolfe, in the response to Creasy.

“We estimate these new costs of the model at £330m [per annum] overall, across all EU imports. We have not had full biosecurity controls in place at our border since leaving the European Union.”

Food and logistics firms have repeatedly warned that the UK’s post-Brexit border strategy risks further pushing up food prices, which have already surged due to rampant inflation.

In August, the government delayed for the fifth time the introduction of post-Brexit checks on food, plant and animal produce arriving in Britain, meaning they will not begin until the end of January 2024.

The government said the delay in implementation – from late October – followed talks with industry which said businesses needed more time to prepare.

The move has also been interpreted as a response to concerns that the start of checks would further fuel food price inflation during the cost of living crisis, although the government said the impact of the new border strategy on headline inflation would amount to “less than 0.2% across three years”.

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