PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Border Target Operating Model - 29 February 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

The Government are delivering a programme of engagement with stakeholders across all sectors in all parts of the country, and with key European Union trading partners, to ensure that goods continue to move across the border. We have not identified any specific risk to the cross-border flow of goods.

The Minister may not have identified risks, but businesses are certainly very worried about potential delays and costs. Alongside the “not for EU” labelling issues, the Food and Drink Federation estimates that there will be an extra £250 million a year in costs. So I challenge him: is he really saying there will be no extra costs for our hard-pressed constituents as a result of all this extra bureaucracy?

We are not saying that, no, but I would say to the hon. Member that appropriate import controls are fundamental to ensure that we can protect the UK’s food supply chain, our food and farming industries, and our natural environment from biosecurity risks. The border target operating model will have very little impact on most of our fruit and vegetable imports, which have been classified as low risk. As he presses me, I would say to him that inflationary impacts on food for consumers will be at most less than 0.2 percentage points over a three-year period, and we have published the methodology online. Of course, no one should ever be cavalier about the cost of food, but I am sure he would agree with me that 0.2 percentage points over three years is a small figure.

I call the shadow Minister.

I am absolutely astonished—I really am astonished—at the complacency about the impact on UK food bills, because the Government’s own projections say that this border scheme will cost UK businesses some £330 million per year, while the British Chambers of Commerce has highlighted charges for EU goods coming into the UK. What assessment has the Minister made of the full inflationary impact of these measures on UK food bills, and with further checks due to start in April, what preparations are in hand to prevent a repeat of the chaotic scenes at our ports that we have seen before on this Government’s watch?

Alas that there are disease outbreaks in the European Union and alas that food is circulating that does not comply with EU standards. I hope to protect the people of Wycombe and the whole United Kingdom from unsafe pork and chicken, and to ensure that we do not end up vulnerable to things such as the horsemeat scandal. As I understand it, the Labour party wishes to revert to the regime we had when we were an EU member state by aligning with the EU on sanitary and phytosanitary matters. I remember very well the horsemeat scandal that arose, and I do not want to see anything like that occur again.

I would just point out that an outbreak of African swine fever would be a fundamental threat to the viability of our pig industry. Foot and mouth cost British businesses £12.8 billion, at 2022 prices, in 2001. The cost of ash dieback is forecast to be £15 billion to the UK. I think we need to take seriously the need to protect our borders and the need to check these medium to high-risk products, and that is what this Government will responsibly do.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

Have the Government made any assessment of the additional cost to SMEs of these changes—the red tape they have had and will have to wrangle with—and how many businesses will go under as a result?

We are not expecting businesses to go under as a result of this, but I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I just gave: it is vital that we protect our borders. The reality is that there are risks to public health from food and we need to make sure that we are not cavalier about these checks. It is vital that we protect our borders and protect the public, and that is what we are going to do. We are continuing to engage with businesses, we expect there to be very few problems, and we will work our way through. There is no question of being cavalier: we have been working very carefully to consult stakeholders and make sure there have not been great problems.

The hon. Lady shakes her head, but I just point out that the 31 January deadline for export health certificates passed by and there were not the problems that were forecast.