The British Ports Association (BPA) welcomes a new deal between the UK and the EU, announced today at a summit in London, that will establish a new common SPS area to improve trade flows between the UK and EU. The BPA is however calling for compensation for ports that will now likely forfeit millions in sunk costs in border infrastructure they were forced to build under the old agreement.
Ports that have incurred significant expense building under-utilised and now likely redundant new border infrastructure must be compensated, however. The industry invested over £100m in new border control posts, built at pace and a time of high construction costs, because of new post-Brexit rules but operators have been unable to recover costs from traders as government has not undertaken border checks at the expected level. Whilst a new framework agreement today that is expected to lead to a new common SPS area is welcome, it means that capital and operational costs (as well as opportunity costs) will likely never be recovered from traders as promised. As a result, the BPA is calling on Government to meet the shortfall.
Today’s agreement will likely lead to alignment of food standards which means that almost all cross border checks carried out at Border Control Posts will not be needed. Richard Ballantyne, Chef Executive of the BPA, which represents ports that facilitate 86% of the UK’s trade including the overwhelming majority of our ports that handle EU traffic, said:
“We welcome a new common SPS area that will lower barriers to trade. There is a long way to go in agreeing the details and getting arrangements in place, but we hope this will be the foundation of a longer term partnership with the EU.
This agreement means that many new border control posts that were built at a cost of over £120m to industry to manage checks that never fully materialised are now likely to become obsolete. Government should cover the full costs of these white elephants and put this episode behind us.”
| A reported agreement on youth mobility and reports of new fisheries funding are both good news, but rules on seafood landings must be tightened to support coastal communities. The UK exports the majority of seafood we catch and imports the majority of seafood we eat, so lowering barriers to accessing important EU markets is very welcome. Ministers must tighten economic link conditions on commercial fisheries licenses however, to ensure as much seafood is landed into UK ports before processing. A reported new fisheries fund must also be targeted primarily at infrastructure, which brings the widest benefit to industry for taxpayers. |