Brexit border chiefs left in the dark hours before new checks kick in

 

IMAGE BY OVOODOCORVO

Brexit border chiefs left in the dark hours before new checks kick in

 

Ports have spent millions of their own cash on high-spec inspection facilities — but still don’t know how they’ll recoup their costs.

 

APRIL 28, 2024 6:55 PM CET

BY SOPHIE INGE

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-brexit-border-target-operating-mode/

 

LONDON — Britain is meant to be launching the “most advanced border in the world” this week. It doesn’t feel like that to the people running it.

 

With implementation of the second — and most critical — phase of the U.K.’s five-times-delayed post-Brexit border regime commencing on Tuesday, ports are still being left in the dark on crucial details by the British government.

 

Physical checks on EU animal and plant imports to the island nation are meant to begin April 30 at specially designated border control posts. It’s all part of the government’s “Border Target Operating Model,” needed now it’s left the bloc’s single market.

 

But with just hours to go, commercial port operators — many of whom have pumped millions of pounds of their own cash into setting up high-spec inspection facilities — have serious concerns about how exactly they’re meant to recoup the costs of running them.

 

An exasperated senior port executive, granted anonymity to speak freely, said: “It’s enormously frustrating that after literally years — a period where the physical facilities at ports have been ready and at a time when ports are feeling the wrath of customers for charges that are not of the ports doing — we’re still waiting for government to deliver at one minute to midnight.”

 

Crucial detail missing

Under the new border system, selected importers will have to submit animal and plant products posing a “medium” risk to U.K. biosecurity to identity and physical checks at border control posts. The checks test for pests and diseases and involve temperature readings and visual inspections.

 

Importers will then be invoiced for the checks by commercial ports. But even at this late stage, ports are still pressing for “urgent access” to a post-Brexit government IT system they say is crucial for ensuring they can actually invoice importers.

 

In a letter sent last week to the U.K.’s Cabinet Office, Richard Ballantyne, chief executive of the British Ports Association, and Rhett Hatcher, chief executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping, warned it’s not possible to know “how many eligible goods are being transported through ports as well as who to invoice a blanket charge” without the information on the government’s Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System.

 

They need access to the government IT system, they say, in order to have a “realistic opportunity to recover costs from users and importers.”

 

In a meeting with port operators last week, officials at Britain’s environment department, Defra, tried to calm fears, and said they were working on sharing some of that data with ports. But they conceded the technical fix for doing this might not be available for months. It will need a data sharing agreement between the port operator and Defra — and the government may end up charging the ports for access to the data.

 

Even if they get access, port operators still don’t know if they’ll be able to use the data retrospectively to charge for checks already done.

 

“The main issue for ports that are affected is that they need to recover their ongoing operational costs and secondly their contribution to the capital costs,” explained Mark Simmonds, director of policy and external affairs at the British Ports Association. “They are eager to start doing that because even now they are incurring costs in keeping those [border control posts] going even though they are not being used.”

 

Without an effective means of charging importers, ports have the choice of either not charging importers at all — or finding some temporary fix of their own.

 

One workaround currently being explored would involve billing intermediaries such as shipping companies who would in turn bill customers — a move that inevitably piles on an extra layer of bureaucracy.

 

‘Laughing stock of Europe’

Despite having had years to plan for the new border regime, the British government appears to have left many crucial details until the last minute.

 

Repeated delays to the border regime mean a number of control posts have been left standing empty, causing them to be branded “Brexit white elephants” by port staff.

 

Earlier this month, ministers finally published details of the new charging regime for the checks at its own state-run border control post at Sevington, a village in Kent. The blanket fees for importers — known as a “common user charge” — will range from £10 for “low risk” goods up to £145 for “mixed consignments.”

 

But Nigel Jenney, chief executive of the Fresh Produce Consortium, a trade body, described those costs as “exorbitant” and warned they will add “millions of pounds in annual costs to the supply chain.”

 

“The U.K. government has ignored our extensive advice on how to streamline border processes,” he warned. “Instead, they’ve created a strategy that is both incompetent and hugely expensive ... This will drive up costs for our sector, which will ultimately be passed on to consumers already struggling with the rising cost of living.”

 

“We have become the laughing-stock of Europe,” he argued.

 

A government spokesperson said: “These border checks are fundamental to protecting the U.K.’s food supply chain, farmers and natural environment against costly diseases reaching our shores.”

 

“Our robust analysis has shown they will have minimal impact on food prices and consumers, with just a 0.2 percentage point increase on food prices over the next three years, while businesses will save around £520 million each year compared to the model originally proposed,” the spokesperson said.

 

But some fear the cost to consumers could in fact be much higher — and the government has still not revealed the modeling behind its inflation figures, originally published last summer, before it even decided on a charging regime.

 

Light-touch approach

The government said two weeks ago it will take a “pragmatic” approach to checks, prioritizing inspections of the “highest-risk goods,” including some medium-risk categories.

 

Government documents published April 19 suggest checks will be minimal for most animal and animal product categories at the outset, but did not say how many checks will be carried out on plant products.

 

The government also said all checks would be “scaled up to full check levels in a sensible and controlled way” — but it remains unclear when full checks will be reached, leaving more confusion for people trading across the border.

 

The letter from port and shipping industry bodies, cited above, also raised concerns about the number and availability of government staff checking the products at the border control posts and their working hours.

 

“There are still business-critical pieces of information that businesses need,” said Nichola Mallon, head of trade at trade body Logistics UK. “We need an exact timeline from the government as to when it will scale up to full checks.”

 

She added: “Our members think that it’s unfair that on April 30 everyone is going to be hit with the common user charge, whether or not they are selected for a check.

 

“Then on top of that, the government is applying the charge universally when by its own admission it’s taking a phased approach to the implementation of the checks.”

 

The turmoil hasn’t gone unnoticed on the other side of the English Channel, either. Marco Forgione, director general of the Institute of Export and International Trade, said businesses in the EU are already “tearing their hair out” with frustration.

 

“Just hours before we go live there are still some pretty important pieces of information that they are not aware of,” he added.

 

“Food supply chains are highly integrated and time-sensitive. Minutes and hours really matter. So not having information at the right time in order to plan and prepare for the changes has the potential to have a dramatic knock-on effect. We know from our conversations in the EU … that the degree of uncertainty is such that they are really considering whether they will continue to move goods into the U.K.”

 

With so much uncertainty, some are showing a keen interest in the opposition Labour Party’s plan to seek a veterinary agreement with the EU, a move which could potentially obviate the need for checks both on the U.K. and EU side.

 

Anand Menon, director of the U.K. In a Changing Europe think tank, said he thought the EU would be “willing to sit down with Labour and discuss the prospect of an agreement” but that “the devil will always be in the detail,” such as what level of alignment the U.K. is seeking.

 

For businesses already facing soaring costs and mounds of paperwork in the here and now, that’s unlikely to offer much comfort.