Transport
Brexit ready
SEAFOOD businesses will be hoping the election result brings Brexit deliberations to a quick conclusion; nothing is more debilitating for trade than the constant uncertainty that has characterised the past three and a half years. But despite Boris Johnson’s revised draft withdrawal deal being passed in the Commons in October, the legislation is currently paused, and the industry cannot afford to be complacent yet.
Nearly a year ago, when March 31 still loomed as the date the UK would leave Europe, Seafish, the industry authority, advised seafood leaders to be prepared for the worst case scenario of a no deal.
Ivan Bartolo, Seafish regulatory affairs officer, told the Norwegian Seafood Council’s London summit in January, the future is where facts finish and conjecture begins when it comes to Brexit.
Eleven months down the line, Bartolo said although a lot of work had been done by companies, nothing can be taken for granted.
‘It’s difficult to say whether we’ve moved on or not because we’re in this limbo,’ he said. ‘The government publicly stepped down its no deal planning at the end of October. But the fact is that no deal is still a possibility.
‘The philosophy is that if you prepare for a no deal then that is the worst case scenario and if something other than a no deal comes out, then we will be able to cope with that as well.
‘I think that philosophy will still hold – we do have to be cautious.’
The logistics of moving exports to Europe, and ensuring that the uninterrupted traffic of fresh fish and shellfish continues, has been one of the major preoccupations in the industry.
Bartolo said: ‘The UK has come a really long way over the last few months to make sure it has a lot of things in place to be able to carry on exporting.
‘For example, there’s a bigger capacity to produce export health certificates, that was really important.’
Bartolo said concerns were likely to remain over logjams at the Channel until systems are put to the test, but there had been an improvement in preparations on the European side and new arrangements put in place..
‘For example, Boulogne-sur-Mer and some other places in France [Caen in Normandy and Roscoff in Brittany] have organised their facilities to be able to receive seafood from a third country.
‘You have to have a border control point to be able to receive seafood from a third country. And a lot of these ports weren’t geared up for that, they were just ports because they were just getting seafood from the UK or from Ireland.
‘The French want to keep this trade flowing through their ports and some did not have that particular office, which is the border control point, to allow fish from third countries through.’
Some businesses have also been looking at alternative ferry routes to the Continent and Bartolo said contingency plans, in the event of a no deal, have been formalised, enabling ports such as Zeebrugge to accept seafood.
‘There is this regulation in the European Commission which is ready to go live the moment the UK leaves with no deal. Suddenly, all these places will be able to accept seafood.
‘Santander is another – it wasn’t approved for food for human consumption but it will be the moment this goes through.’
While customs checks can be done further in land, veterinary checks are what’s important because they have to be done at the border and ‘that’s where the pile-ups can happen’, said Bartolo.
Another possibility to avoid long queues at the UK end was to introduce fast lanes for seafood traffic, but some hauliers have been sceptical these would work.
Bartolo said: ‘There was an idea that was floated that certain loads would be classed as critical and given precedence.
‘I think the hauliers welcomed the fact that seafood would be classed as critical.
‘But whether it can be put into practice is different. If you have a queue of lorries that is a certain number of miles long, how are you going to go back and check the papers five miles up the line to check whether you have a critical load or not?
‘Maybe there is a way of doing it, but it’s the practicalities that hauliers and the trade were a bit worried about.’
With imports, the UK has said it won’t be asking for veterinary certificates on seafood from Europe, and imports from other countries are
“We do have to be cautious because no deal is still a possibility”
used to providing these, so there will be no change there, said Bartolo.
The UK will be asking for catch certificates though (on caught seafood) and there is ‘a little bit of a question mark’ over whether the member states are prepared to produce these.
‘It could be a sticking point, it depends on the member states. There’s not much importers here can do other than make sure their suppliers in the member states get sorted.’
Asked what advice he would give seafood businesses at this stage, Bartolo stressed the importance of preparation.
‘Even as late as late October I was meeting businesses who were still hoping that everything would be okay! And they had done nothing about it.
‘Some of them work to quite narrow margins so they simply can’t divert their resources to do this. Especially the smaller businesses.’
The bigger businesses, including salmon farmers, depend heavily on exports but most will already have experience trading with non-EU countries so will know the procedures.
‘A lot of companies don’t have in house staff to deal with customs, only one or two people who deal with customs agents.
‘We’re going to need a lot more customs agents and they have been expanding – they find people and train them up. As far as I know, that has been happening.
‘And to a certain extent, businesses have been looking at improving their internal training.
‘There are still grants available – we don’t provide it but we signpost it. It’s HMRC that organise it.
‘If one or two people in an organisation became customs experts that would really help.
‘If your company has only been dealing with Europe, you’ve not had to deal with customs at all. It’s a brand new subject you have to learn about.’
In January, Bartolo said everyone was hoping the government would reach some deal so it would be able to guarantee zero tariff seafood trade with Europe. How confident is he now that this will happen?
‘The way I see it at the moment, all options are equally possible. We cannot take zero tariff seafood to Europe for granted.’