Hundreds of small to medium businesses are bracing themselves for a financial maelstrom in the wake of DEFRA’s implementation of the Common User Charge. Officially the ministry sent out thousands of invoices during the first week of August, many of which have yet to turn up. CUC has been charged on imported plant and animal-based products since the end of April. As well as billing three months’ worth of tax in one fell swoop, there is a widespread concern that a significant proportion of the bills will end up with people who are part of the supply chain but not actually liable for settling the account. Preliminary estimates of impending invoices run to thousands of pounds a month.
Often referred to as the “Brexit border tax”, the Common User Charge was devised by the previous Conservative government. It was presented as a mechanism to recover the costs of border checks for inbound goods, but this notion should be taken with a pinch of salt. The most potent multiplier in a CUC bill is in fact the number of consignments in a load, making it a damping influence on grouped shipments. These account for around two thirds of UK food imports.
The workload of maintaining post-Brexit trade with the UK is such that every day six people are diverted to troubleshooting red tape and overcoming administrative inertia for a major meat importer. This resource is additional to the routine business of managing a presence on the UK market in previous years. All around Europe, food companies are reconsidering the cost of shipping product to the UK. A number of Spanish pigmeat traders are already starting to throw in the towel on the British market and sell to Germany instead. The reasoning is clear: they know that their lorries will no longer face unpredictable treatment on arrival in customs sheds.
The Scandinavians have been selling food to the UK since the 1870s and the Danish meat sector is as firmly embedded in the UK economy as it has ever been. It operates on a scale that allows it to ship a high proportion of full loads, making it something of a rarity among the UK’s food suppliers, many of whom are seriously questioning the increased costs of a “world class” operating model.
This is not new, but for a few brief moments the British political climate might just let a few sparks of fresh thinking to take hold. It all depends on the extent to which the underlying structures of the UK’s food imports have been broken. Starting where we left off with the Brexit border tax, there is a short window during which some damage limitation might be implemented.
Top of the list of policy changes to make would be to improve the treatment of lorry drivers coming to the UK. Another objective that should be high on the list is a greater level of care and attentionrrdrþ when handling fragile goods. Fragile shipments of young plants have been refused by retailers, who operate in a very time sensitive market. The horticultural sector has been disproportionately hit by hamfisted inspection teams.
Defensive to the last, DEFRA has come out fighting and is accusing importers of deliberately making mistakes in the data entered into consignment details. For instance, there are six primary classifications for rice, a common component in ready meals. How complicated can DEFRA make it to identify the rice used in a ready meal, then? Well, the guidance for six customs codes topped 680 words and the text fills a sheet of A3 when reduced to 7.5 point. It details the rice varieties to be found. While quite interesting, it assumes knowledge and experience that is quite rarified. Oh, and you’ll need to bring your own standardised system to measure rice grains. In fact, it would be a useful addition.
A world first: on-farm biogas liquefaction was demonstrated by Sublime Energie in the comfort of the sixth arrondissement of Paris this week. It may be good enough to put in a bottle, but, like the genie, you wouldn’t want it to get out…
After a year and a half of reflection and planning, the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has announced that it will implement a new operational structure on October 10. Details here.
With no more than a month to go before the election, War on Want is writing to party leaders to remind them of the sort of changes that ordinary people want to see. Find out more here.
Global warming is primarily the result of damaging policies and economic choices made by rich countries, while the impact is felt most acutely by poor countries and economies in the south. Tuesday June 11 is a Global Day of Action for Climate Finance, during which campaigners around the world seek justice for the victims of this imbalance. In the UK, War on Want is supporting a march from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street at 12 noon. Marchers will deliver a demand for positive action by prime minister Rishi Sunak at a summit of G7 member states in Turin next week. Link to the campaign here.
LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) is celebrating 30 years of sustainable farming on the weekend of June 26/27 with the return of the Groundswell festival event. More details here
AHDB UK clean pig slaughter numbers for week 24 recorded a week on week rise to 11,000 head, bringing year to date slaughterings up to 151,000 head as of June 1 this year. (estimated figures) The year to date figure is up by 1,000 during this time, while carcase weights have hardly moved over the past week at 90.58kg with just over 11mm back fat. AHDB pig market data is here.
Oil giants BP and Exxon are sufficiently frightened by grassroots campaigners to be planning to send 200 lobbyists to Canada this November in an attempt to delay a major international treaty that will reduce plastic packaging waste. International campaigns group Eko has a cunning plan to thwart their plans. More information here.
Commodities news service ZMP is running an item from Morocco, where a 43% drop in harvest has been preceded by a 33% decline in planted area.
After three years of low stocks and poor crops, Brazil’s orange juice industry is starting to look around for alternative citrus fruits that do not succumb to citrus greening. This condition first appeared in Florida 20 years ago, wrecking the state’s headline crop. Today, Brazilian producers face a devastating combination of bad weather …and citrus greening. There is a big article in the Financial Times that brings readers up to date with an ongoing crisis.
The descriptions and content of these brief items are kept as short as possible: if you want to follow up the details of a story, click the link that will always be provided.
Is Labour doing the right thing when it accuses the Tories of “gaslighting” the state of the British economy, that is to say querying the tory grasp of economic indicators to unsettle conservative assumptions? Top of the list: will Thursday’s meeting at the Bank of England really decide to keep interest at 5.25%?
Livestock farmers are facing the threat of wind-borne midges carrying a new strain of blue tongue virus across the North Sea, potentially infecting British sheep and cattle. The illness is established in northern Europe, where it causes significant livestock losses.
Tea time: Manchester Evening News parent editor Emma Gill compares retailer brand tea bags after a series of substantial price rises.
The outlook for olive oil supples is as grim as ever. Sarah Butler lines up the industry’s international data and tells readers of The Guardian to expect more of the same. Urban Food Chains ran an overview a a few months ago.
Defection of the week: Dover MP Natalie Elphicke crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join the Labour party benches. It will be interesting to see how her position will change on things like the Brexit border tax. To help readers spot the changes, I downloaded a couple of posts on May 9 from https://natalieelphicke.com, laying out her position before she jumped ship. The original posts were here: one makes the case for providing adequate funding to allow Dover Port Health Authority to maintain its biosecurity targets and the other highlights ways in which Blockchain applications can speed up border checks. Just in case the originals disappear, download the May 9 versions here and here.
Strong European cheese is a taste challenge to consumers in south east Asia, where the strong flavours and live textures literally get up the noses of potential export customers in cities like Singapore. The BBC filed this report about the seasoned export cheese sales teams from countries such as France, Italy or Switzerland. They are very careful not to push their challenging products until they have earned the confidence of prospective customers. British cheese sales teams headed for Asia with high hopes of conquering sales prospects with cheeses like Stinking Bishop. The broadcasters learnt that the British team was only allowed to promote their strong-smelling cheese at the show because they paid to exhibit at the show on the spot with their own money.
Good news from pesticide campaigners: PAN Europe has become the first civil society to win a substantive case in Europe’s highest court. Pesticide Action Europe challenged the absence of any new scientific data in support of product approval renewals. The EU Court of Justice found in favour of the campaigners, adding that authorisations and renewals at national level should be fully documented and should no longer rely on the work of other member states when renewing product licences. The decision should stop the endless re-use of data going back decades. Read more on the PAN Europe website.
On April 30 the government will roll out the second phase of its Border Target Operating Model (BTOM). The result is likely to be total chaos on a number of counts.
There is growing unease about the wall of silence surrounding the computer system at the heart of the BTOM, called the Single Trade Window (STW). This will be the one and only way of getting data into the system. The final version*1 of the BTOM guide, published on February 11 states: “ …the Single Trade Window could be fully operational in 2027.”
There are a number of reasons why this could be awkward, but one will do. The STW calculates the aggregate cost of wear and tear caused by lorry traffic to roadways at ports. This operational detail is used to set a levy called the Common User Charge (CUC). This is payable to HMRC within four weeks. While the STW sets a figure for Government operated ports, private operators were invited to fix their own charges, as they would do for anything else. There appear to be a number of sticking points. Dover and Portsmouth, the two busiest ports in the UK, both happen to be owned and operated privately.
The Common User Charge scheme comes from the European Directive 1999/62/EC, which was passed by the European Parliament and voted by the Council of 17 June 1999. The EU framed it as a way of charging heavy goods vehicles for the use of infrastructure such as national road networks. It is no more than a rehashed EU pipe dream.
The scheme was never developed into a fully operational model in Europe. However, faced with the challenge of organising a system of robust controls on EU imports, the UK government saved a lot of time and effort by reviving the Common User Charge. Stakeholders believed that new processes would cost a lot of money, so the UK government took them at their word and came up with a scheme to absorb their cash. Whitehall covered its back by saying that future costs would reflect how businesses are adapting their working practices and supply chains to the new rules.
The architects of the project assume that a budget of £330 million a year would cover roadway wear and tear arising from EU imports. On the basis of that figure, civil servants argue that the new system represents a cost of 0.13% of all EU imports, then valued at £259 billion pounds. The value of such arguments cannot be guaranteed, but it is definitely an advantage to have two numbers, one of them large and impressive. However, these assumptions were never put to the test.
On Wednesday April 5, DEFRA unveiled a radical restructuring for the Common User Charge. Officials expect the CUC to be set between £20 and £43 per consignment: there are often multiple consignments in a load. The Government predicts that the new system will generate a 0.2% rise in the cost of food over three years.
1 Feb-11-24-Final_Border_Target_Operating_Model.pdf para 350 page 88
Since leaving the EU, the UK government has operated transitional biosecurity arrangements, including one called Place of Destination. After a number of postponements, the scheme is finally being withdrawn on April 30 to make way for the long-awaited Border Target Operating Model (BTOM).
This will redraw the map for traders, legislators and consumers alike, including a number of far-reaching modifications to the way the border will be managed. It marks the start of a shift away from EU standards to a home-grown hodge podge. In its day, Place of Destination allowed businesses to do their own product checks at a time when UK border facilities were either not available or still under construction.
DEFRA’s own description is an opaque blend of jargon and legalese: “The PoD scheme not only afforded flexibility to businesses as they adjusted to the new requirements following the end of the transition period, but also allowed the UK government time to thoroughly design BCP infrastructure and processes, maintaining frictionless trade, while protecting GB biosecurity.” The present outlook is not encouraging.
On Monday, March 12, the EFRA Select Committee met under the chairmanship of Dr Neil Hudson to discuss the ongoing shortage of vets to carry out routine health checks on inbound food products. The UK’s chief veterinary officer Christine Middlemiss told the committee that when the UK left Europe there was a shortage of vets in the order of 11%, and, that to her present knowledge, this was still the case. This sounds odd, since the demand for routine veterinary validations for food imports is rising steadily. Westminster has known for years that the food industry was facing a skills gap. A House of Lords committee warned of this in 2017 [click link to see context] and the idea that demand could be static is frankly a non-starter.
British cheese exports to Canada will face duty of 245% next year, once the third country duty-free quota is exhausted. Some 95% of this quota is already taken by products arriving from Norway and Switzerland, leaving very little for shipments to any other third country.
This slap in the face for British cheesemakers comes as Canadian negotiators came amid talks on the implementation of the much-vaunted bilateral trade deal. Refusing to roll over previous extensions to zero percent duty available under former EU terms, the so-called cheese letters, the decision vapourises pre-Brexit claims of extensive growth in UK food exports. These will in fact be treated like any other third country products, in the absence from specific terms agreed during the framework negotiations. Last year, the UK exported cheese worth nearly GBP 19 million to Canada.
Hundreds of acres of cultivable farmland will be cleared to make way for houses as far as the eye can see. In the coming months, Mid Sussex District Council will hear applications from developers wanting to build 1500 houses between the villages of Ansty and Cuckfield. As well as residential properties, there will be shops and amenities in addition to a headline-grabbing 30% allocation of social housing. Whether or not the developments will ever release as much as 30% for social housing remains to be seen, but it needs to be there at the outset..
This major development plan faces problems, however. To begin with the new homes will generate additional demand for water in a part of the world where demand for water is already comparabl;e to desert regions.The loss of 250 acres of farmland is nothing short of disastrous: the UK cannot afford to throw away productive land.
Comments can be entered at the foot of posts, but not pages.
![click to read Of Brexit And Dogs' Dinners](http://<!-- wp:image {"id":1815,"sizeSlug":"full","linkDestination":"none"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://urbanfoodchains.uk/wp-content/uploads/scaled-dogs-dinner.png" alt="" class="wp-image-1815"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><a href="https://urbanfoodchains.uk/of-brexit-and-dogs-dinners/">Of Brexit and dogs' dinners</a></figcaption></figure> <!-- /wp:image -->){kind=link}