This extended post replaces a number of earlier posts, to include more detail.
Two million lorries passed through Dover in 2022, down 17,000 on 2021. This year the government will roll out its Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) management structure. Part of the new system is a flat rate payment of (£20 to £43) per consignment per lorry. The Common User Charge covers the use of the terminal, but not inspection fees.
International borders and biosecurity are 24/7 commitments, so when Dover Port Health Authority (DPHA) started planning its Point Bastion Border Control point (BCP) for England’s busiest port, it envisaged a 1,200-space lorry park close to the port with customs inspection facility working a 24-hour working day. Dover port received a royal warrant from King James I in 1606 and operates independently to this day, owned by Dover Harbour Board.
The port handles goods worth £144 billion a year, around a third of the goods traded in the UK. There are two distinct strands to its food enforcement workload. There are the ongoing investigations to catch impromptu smugglers with small batches of unhygienic meat in variable states of decay, destined for closed ethnic groups with money to spend on familiar foods and flavours.
This contraband has no paperwork and is carefully concealed in all manner of vehicles. In the weeks running up to Christmas 2023, five or six tonnes of illegal meat products were confiscated at Dover. Legal lorry loads of meat and animal products pass through the port, destined for UK food industry customers: processors, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers.
The scale of this work goes a long way to explaining the original decision to have extensive parking facilities.
As well as the Common User Charge, the range of foodstuffs that will be routinely tested on arrival in the UK will rise, with the addition of medium-risk plants and plant-based products. Environment ministry DEFRA is quick to point out that any inspection fees are payable on searched consignments in addition to the CUC.
Dover handles millions of lorries in a year and Common User Charge would be expected to generate tens of millions of pounds before factoring in groupage.
The port is unusual but by no means unique to be a major port with an independent management structure. Dover East docks are built on an artificial headland created when the railway was separated from the dockside. Space is at a premium here, a deciding factor in the development of Point Bastion. The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee heard on March 1, 2022 that work was progressing well and 500 specialist staff had been recruited. (https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/9794/pdf/)
The same committee hearing had similar news from Sevington BCP, a 174 million pound development close to the Eurostar terminal at Ashford. This site had originally been commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT) with an expected lifespan of five to 10 years.
What happened subsequently is not clear, but HMRC revised its parking requirement for Point Bastion from 1,200 spaces to 96. Dover Harbour Board (DHB) faces cuts to it enforcement activities. Someone in the corridors of power unhelpfully suggested recovering the shortfall from successful prosecutions of illegal meat and animal products. DHB is fending off calls for its food safety checks to be carried out at Sevington, 22 miles away on the A20(M).
More worryingly, the Commons EFRA select committee heard Karen Betts, chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation, expressing her concerns that official vets working for foreign food manufacturers might not fill in the customs declarations correctly for ready meal products like lasagne. It is a big ask.
When the UK left Europe and re-instated third country export rules, the number of qualified vets plummeted. Where once there had been 1132 vets in the UK to fill in export health declarations in 2019, now there are just 364. There has been a 1255% rise in requests for valid export certificates.
Brexit is far from being “a done deal.”
DEFRA description of common user charge:
Defra has developed a charging model to recover operating costs for government-run border control posts (BCPs) in England ahead of planned implementation of SPS checks on EU imports in January 2024. The legal basis for charging is Article 81(b) of the retained Official Control Regulations (OCR).
Defra proposes administering a single Common User Charge: a flat rate levied on every SPS consignment (Plants and Plant Products (P&PP) and Animal Products) which is eligible for BCP checks and enters through the Port of Dover or Eurotunnel Le Shuttle, whether selected for a check or not. This does not include goods arriving as rail freight via the Channel Tunnel, or personal imports arriving on the Eurostar and Dover Ferry passenger services as these goods will not be subject to SPS checks at a BCP. Imports of live animals will not have charges applied until they are subject to checks at a BCP, scheduled for late 2024. The Common User Charge approach flattens the rates, spreads the burden, and provides a high level of certainty to importers. These charges are intended to recover the costs of operating the BCP facilities as set out in Article 81(b) of the retained OCR which are necessary to undertake physical inspections. This charge would be separate to any charges applied by the Port Health Authority and Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) for inspections. The Common User Charge also does not include charges applied by other government agencies for activities outside of the BCP, such as any customs checks.
In DEFRA’s own words: “The Common User Charge… ( approach flattens the rates, spreads the burden, and provides a high level of certainty to importers. These charges are…) …(is)…intended to recover the costs of operating the BCP facilities(… as set out in Article 81(b) of the retained OCR which are necessary to undertake physical inspections…). This charge would be separate to any charges applied by the Port Health Authority and Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) for inspections. The Common User Charge also does not include charges applied by other government agencies for activities outside of the BCP, such as any customs checks.”
