Fruit & vegetables could become more expensive under new government proposals to increase border inspection fees later this year.
Fresh produce traders are facing an increase in costs of around £10m a year after Defra’s Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) recently proposed an amendment to its import fees, which have been frozen since 2019.
The new plant health charges – which are intended to recoup the costs of carrying out border checks – are set to roll out at all UK points of entry from autumn 2025 if approved, APHA said.
The agency is proposing an increase of 27% on import fees in order to “achieve full cost recovery”.
But those in the fruit & veg sector have warned that the industry is unable to shoulder the “huge” cost increases and will inevitably have to pass them on to consumers.
APHA’s proposals “suggest the annual fees charged to the industry will rise from around £6.5m to at least £16m”, according to Fresh Produce Consortium CEO Nigel Jenney, with “95% of these charges set to hit the fruit, vegetable and plant sector”.
Some of the cost increases were “attributable to our new position in trading with Europe”, Jenney noted, as health authorities have had to ramp up checks on EU plant and animal goods when new post-Brexit requirements came into place last year.
He added: “We don’t dispute the UK now has new borders. The government has the right to recharge costs to the industry under what they say is ‘full cost recovery’, and the industry is willing to pay a fair rate for a fair service.”
However, Jenney argued the fresh produce sector had some of the highest food safety compliance rates and yet had continued to be hit with “enormous costs” for “second-rate” inspections that often caused delivery delays.
“The industry is performing at a highly proficient level and we’re now finding that responsible, hard-working businesses that abide by the law and make the appropriate declarations are being charged huge additional costs and fees, and incurring all those delays for something that, from a bio-secure risk point of view, is nominal,” he said.
The trade group’s chief warned the added costs “make it more and more difficult to trade” and “ultimately are of magnitude that cannot be absorbed by the industry – therefore, our customers and ultimately UK consumers have to pay the price”.
The plans also come amid a new Defra report estimating the operational costs of the government’s new border control facility in Sevington, where the majority of the country’s post-Brexit checks on EU goods take place, will hit £23m in its first year of running –from 30 April 2024 to 29 April 2025.
The government will use these estimates to review the rates of its common user charge, a fee paid by traders arriving via Dover or the Eurotunnel, and which varies depending on the types of goods they are bringing into the UK.
The aim of the common user charge is to help Defra recover the costs of carrying out post-Brexit inspections on EU goods at the new facility.
But the £23m estimates have raised concerns among importers that the Sevington BCP is too expensive and that government will up the fees in April to help recoup the expenditure.
Jenney said Sevington’s operational costs were “simply obscene” and did not reflect the “atrocious” service provided at the border facility, with common reports of delays and mishandling and damaging of goods.
“At the same time, we are seeing members receiving invoices that suggests to us that the income being made [at Sevington] is far greater than the £23m in operational costs,” he added.
The final operating costs of Sevington BCP will be published in April 2025, when Defra will confirm the common user charge rates for 2025 to 2026.
This figure “may be different to the estimated cost, as it will reflect the full year of actual expenditure”, Defra said.
The FPC has also been promoting with government ”for several years” a so-called ‘authorised operator status’ (AOS) – an internationally recognised standard that proves a business’s role in the supply chain is secure and has customs control procedures that meet government criteria.
This would allow businesses to conduct their own official plant health inspections, relieving APHA of some of the inspections’ burden. Many importers already have their own storage and distribution facilities at different points of entry where they can safely conduct their import checks.
An AOS pilot with several businesses across the supply chain ended on 13 December, but government still hasn’t communicated whether the system can be widely rolled out.
“We see it as a highly efficient solution that brings much greater resource to protect our biosecurity than simply relying on a few inspectors around the country,” Jenney said.
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