Thread by @faisalislam

NEW:

Govt delays post Brexit import paperwork checks due next month and in July... until October, and into next year

Govt: “we have not seen generalised disruption... however recognise scale and significance of challenges” in adjusting to Brexit changes at same time as Covid impacts:

Written ministerial statement from CDL Gove here:

questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statem…

* pre notification requirements/ export health certificates for animal origin not now required until OCtober
* deferred declaration customs extended Jan 2022
* Safety and Security Declarations Jan 2022
* physical agrioood checks on imports Jan 2022
* live animal checks March 2022

This will come as a huge relief to importing businesses... however some exporting businesses and hauliers were under the impression the threat of reciprocal checks would be used as leverage to get the EU to ease its checks. Won’t happen now until next year.

Government revealing a significant preference to continue to wave through imports that keep supermarket shelves stocked... exporters facing problems with post Brexit non tariff barriers, wont however have relief that their competitors from the EU face the same importing into UK.

Lord Frost: “We will now introduce border controls broadly six months later than planned to give traders time to focus on getting back on their feet as the economy opens up after a difficult year...” 1/2

Frost: “We are confident that this new timetable will allow import businesses to re-establish their trading arrangements after a difficult period due to coronavirus, in the most straightforward and lightest touch way possible.”

Government says its systems and infrastructure would have been ready for July, but it has delayed the checks at request of business recovering from Covid pandemic...

Government has also released the internal management data for February (that I reported on a month ago) to support its argument that UK port RoRo flows (though not necessarily actual trade) are “back to normal” meaning at or above February 2020 levels assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

Retail groups welcomed the move, though contradicted Government suggestion infrastructure would have been ready: BRC: “With many of the key Border Control Posts currently little more than a hole in the ground, the six month easement comes in the nick of time”

British Chambers of Commerce also welcomed the “positive step” but argued UK & EU should now get back around table to thrash out “structural problems” in the deal

Reasonable question about how, effectively, we have got to extra transition period for EU firms importing into UK, but not UK firms exporting to EU... Government’s argument has been that UK firms are now also adapted for global trade, and it can now freely legislate outside of EU

See there’s some chatter on here about whether this violates the UK-EU trade agreement - cant see how it does, and even if it did, sure the EU-based exporters would be delighted about a few months extra without any non tariff barriers, and a year with no checks.

Could be a case to answer if a third party could prove they are not being treated the same - in practice an extension of status quo for a few months during pandemic recession, at a time when the WTO bodies aren’t fully functioning, would seem ignorable...

https://twitter.com/marc_limon/status/1370041964977135618?s=21