Three and a bit years after Brexit, are border checks finally here? | International trade

When Michael Gove announced the first delay to post-Brexit checks on plant and animal products coming into the UK from the EU, he was keen to make one thing clear.

“Although we recognise that many in the border industry and many businesses have been investing time and energy to be ready on time, and indeed we in government were confident of being ready on time,” the then minister for the Cabinet Office said, “we have listened to businesses who have made a strong case that they need more time to prepare.”

That was in March 2021. Three years and four delays later, Tuesday will finally see those checks brought in. Or will it?

This time there are question marks over the government’s readiness. In a leaked presentation seen by the Financial Times, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) outlined a plan to phase in controls, with physical inspections initially “set to zero” for all but the highest-risk products.

The government hit back, insisting that checks would be commencing on 30 April, but indicated that they would focus initially on higher-risk products, and scale up checks on other goods in a “sensible and controlled way”.

MPs want an explanation, writing to Defra last week to say this appears to be “a sixth delay to the implementation of [plant and animal products] import checks in all but name”.

The Observer understands the inspection process will begin with more “intelligence-led” checks, focusing first on the highest risk products in all categories. This would see consignments chosen for inspection based on factors such as the country of origin and the company delivering them, and any additional intelligence on certain products coming through the border. The enforcement levels will also be adjusted based on compliance of goods and disruption levels.

This is a scaling-down from the stated plan, which aimed to check between 1% and 30% of medium-risk goods, including meat, cheese, eggs and fish, from 30 April, and 100% of high-risk goods, which includes plants for planting and live animals. The government said it intended to build up to this level of checks but has yet to give a timeline.

This second phase of the post-Brexit border policy, called the border target operating model (BTOM), is designed to mirror the checks the EU introduced on UK imports immediately after the country left the single market in January 2021.

The first phase, which began at the end of January this year, required importers of most meat, dairy and plant to secure health certificates for products before they could enter the UK. This has already created problems for some importers.

Not only has it added extra costs to orders – the certificates can cost up to £200 for each product line – but some suppliers have struggled to find vets to carry out the checks or simply turned their backs on supplying the UK, unwilling to deal with the added bureaucracy. The result has been gaps on some deli shelves.

The move to physical checks will be more disruptive. Inspections will involve some lorries being held at the border. When the EU began controlling imports in 2021, UK exporters were left counting the cost of containers of meat rotting in European ports. The government has said the checks will enhance the country’s biosecurity, and protect farmers and the country’s food security from costly diseases.

World Trade Organization rules state that UK trade borders with the EU need to match those with the rest of the world, so as not to give the bloc a trading advantage.

But trade will be more costly. The government itself has admitted that businesses will have to pay £330m a year, which could add 0.2% to food inflation over three years. A recent Allianz Trade report put the cost as high as £2bn, with a 0.2% increase in headline national inflation.

Ministers insist a phased start to physical checks was the plan all along, but businesses have told the Observer it was news to them.

So, while we may not be about to see long tailbacks or stacks of rotting meat at the border, if history is anything to go by, it won’t be the smoothest – or quickest – move to a fully biosecure border.