Policy & Compliance
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situation, and it is worth advising Members of the applicable highlights: • A 23% decrease in total UK trade in goods with EU countries, comparing Q1 2021 with Q4 2020 (UK-EU trade flows have been affected by both EU Exit and the COVID-19 pandemic). • 140,000 Export Health Certificates (a new requirement) signed by certifying officers for the movement of goods between the UK and EU between January 2021 and June 2021. • 48 million full or simplified Customs declarations made by traders to HMRC between January and August 2021 (compared with 44 million during the whole of 2020). Current statistics Whilst the amount of money spent by business for EU exit will never be fully known, the current statistics make interesting reading: • £470 million – the government’s current allocated funding for infrastructure required to undertake checks at the border, comprising £200 million in grants to ports through the Port Infrastructure Fund and £270 million for inland border facilities (in addition to an
unknown amount funded by ports). • £113 million – the amount that the
The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report – ‘The UK border: Post UK-EU transition period’ – which gives a balanced overview of how the transition has been going The impact of Brexit
government has spent on financial support for industries and sectors affected by the end of the transition period in Britain. • > £500 million of government funding to support businesses trading in Northern Ireland. • 1.2 million movements of consignments from Britain to Northern Ireland supported by the Traders Support Service between January and September 2021. Whilst acknowledging that there have been difficulties in some sectors, the NAO believes that the government was largely successful in putting in place its initial operating capability for the border for 1 January 2021. However, the report does acknowledge the additional administrative burden faced by business and, in certain cases, disruption to trade. In a way the document is historical, looking backwards, but there is a reminder of the next stages of implementing border controls. If nothing else, the reader should realise that from 1 January 2022, imports from the EU will be subject to full Customs controls and from 1 July full controls on foodstuffs will be introduced. The full report from the NAO can be read at: www.nao.org.uk/wp- content/uploads/2021/11/The-UK-border-Post-U K-EU-transition-period.pdf
By the time the reader receives this edition of BIFAlink , the UK will be 11 months into its EU exit journey. Also, most tellingly we will be five months late in introducing full border controls, a point that many overlook in their commentary on the subject. There have been many conflicting reports about the impact of EU Exit. Clearly some sectors have been more adversely impacted than others by the UK leaving the EU – for instance, the fishing sector and other producers of sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) goods. Although we have seen a recent at least partial recovery, when examining these figures we have to consider the disruptive impact of COVID-19 restrictions, which have reduced capacity. The National Audit Office (NAO) report ‘The UK border: Post UK-EU transition period’ of 5 November 2021, to which BIFA provided evidence, gives a balanced overview of the
December 2021
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