The removal of border checks and paperwork on plant imports will “dissolve” £۶۰m of annual costs for the horticulture industry when the UK and EU’s new post-Brexit deal comes in, the environment secretary has said.
Before the UK-EU summit on ۲۰ November, Angela Eagle said she hopes paperwork headaches for importers will “disappear” after the changes, although the move will not help businesses recoup the large sums they spent to deal with border controls.
“If we get the ink dry on ۲۰ November, which I very much hope we will … all of that uncertainty, the extra cost, the paperwork and the potential problems if things get stuck at borders would all disappear,” Eagle told the Guardian during a visit to a plant nursery in Kent.
“The cost, that £۶۰m, can just dissolve and people’s potential to both export back into the EU and get their imports in … gets easier and more predictable.”
The UK’s departure from the bloc triggered the introduction of border checks on imports and exports of plants, food and animal products, from sausages and cheese to trees and leather goods.
Exports of British food and drink to the EU have collapsed by more than a third since Brexit, according to analysis by the National Farmers’ Union, with egg, chicken and potato producers badly affected.
The sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal, largely agreed between the two sides in May, is due to be signed at next week’s summit. It will permit the removal of the vast majority of physical checks and most of the accompanying certificates and paperwork.
This will save businesses in the horticulture sector the current cost of trading with Europe, including plant health inspection fees, phytosanitary certificates, document and ID checks, port fees, agents’ fees, additional labour costs and extra haulage costs.
These costs total £۶۰m a year, according to calculations by the industry body the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), but do not include late delivery penalties or sales lost because of port delays or damage to goods.
These savings should put “downward pressure on food prices”, Eagle said, although she would not confirm the deal would lower the cost of food in the UK.
The promise of the deal was welcomed by Provender Nurseries, one of the UK’s largest wholesale nurseries, which sells thousands of plants, trees and shrubs to local authorities, parks and landscapers from its base at Swanley in Kent.
However, the company has already spent at least £۵۰۰,۰۰۰ on building a post-Brexit control post on its eight-hectare (۲۰-acre) site, which will become obsolete once the deal is implemented.
Richard McKenna, the managing director of Provender, said the business constructed the “sealed building and bought four electric forklifts to operate in it” to allow inspections of lorry loads of valuable trees and shrubs imported from the continent.
The company decided to build the site to reduce the “delays and damage” it has experienced when smaller loads are inspected at government-run border control posts such as Sevington.
“It cost a lot for a barn, but it gave us security as a business,” said McKenna.
Despite this, McKenna hopes the SPS deal will convince some of Provender’s European suppliers, previously deterred by the paperwork and potential pitfalls of post-Brexit trade with the UK, to restart exports.
“We need to see the small print on the agreement,” he said. “It could have been sooner, but we are pleased that it is happening.”
The deal is not expected to be implemented until the first quarter of ۲۰۲۸, meaning businesses such as Provender will still be subject to the current border arrangements for more than a year.
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In the meantime, Fran Barnes, the chief executive of the HTA, called for “some easements as a transition arrangement that are pragmatic” to help horticulture businesses, such as fewer or no checks on imports of lower-risk products.
Eagle conceded the implementation date was later than the mid-۲۰۲۷ targeted when former prime minister Keir Starmer announced his EU “reset” deal in May ۲۰۲۵.
Starmer’s replacement by Andy Burnham led to a “pause” in negotiations with Brussels, said Eagle, with the upcoming November summit pushed back from July.
The original target was “always a very, very ambitious timescale,” she said. “That extra time has meant we could deal in more coherent way with some of the knottier, thornier issues on things like pesticides.”
The UK has continued to use some pesticides and fungicides that are banned in the EU.
This has prompted industry concerns that British potatoes grown in ۲۰۲۷, treated with pesticides banned in the EU, could need to be thrown away if the resulting frozen chips went on sale after the deal’s implementation.
“We are very well aware of these kinds of issues and the EU is also very aware it doesn’t want to be seen to be wasting food,” Eagle said.
British exporters of produce including seed potatoes and some mussels also hope the SPS deal will allow trade halted by Brexit to restart.
“We have been waiting for this moment, but it all depends on the timing of the deal,” said Adam Taylor, a director of Taylors Bulbs in Lincolnshire, which supplies tulip, daffodil and other bulbs to garden centres and nurseries across the UK and Ireland.
A Brexit certification disagreement halted exports of British seed potatoes, particularly from Scotland, to the EU. Taylors underwent the “laborious and expensive” work of setting up an Irish business in order to keep suppling the Republic of Ireland.
“When things go back closer to how they were before Brexit, I hope our Irish customer base will reflect on the loyalty given to them,” he said.
