The removal of border checks and paperwork on plant imports will ādissolveā Ā£60m of annual costs for the horticulture industry when the UK and EUās new post-Brexit deal comes in, the environment secretary has said.Before the UK-EU summit on 20 November, Angela Eagle said she hopes paperwork headaches for importers will ādisappearā after the changes, although the move will not help businesses recoup the large sums they spent to deal with border controls.āIf we get the ink dry on 20 November, which I very much hope we will ā¦ all of that uncertainty, the extra cost, the paperwork and the potential problems if things get stuck at borders would all disappear,ā Eagle told the Guardian during a visit to a plant nursery in Kent.āThe cost, that Ā£60m, can just dissolve and peopleās potential to both export back into the EU and get their imports in ā¦ gets easier and more predictable.āThe UKās departure from the bloc triggered the introduction of border checks on imports and exports of plants, food and animal products, from sausages and cheese to trees and leather goods.Exports of British food and drink to the EU have collapsed by more than a third since Brexit, according to analysis by the National Farmersā Union, with egg, chicken and potato producers badly affected.The sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal, largely agreed between the two sides in May, is due to be signed at next weekās summit. It will permit the removal of the vast majority of physical checks and most of the accompanying certificates and paperwork.This will save businesses in the horticulture sector the current cost of trading with Europe, including plant health inspection fees, phytosanitary certificates, document and ID checks, port fees, agentsā fees, additional labour costs and extra haulage costs.These costs total Ā£60m a year, according to calculations by the industry body the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), but do not include late delivery penalties or sales lost because of port delays or damage to goods.These savings should put ādownward pressure on food pricesā, Eagle said, although she would not confirm the deal would lower the cost of food in the UK.The promise of the deal was welcomed by Provender Nurseries, one of the UKās largest wholesale nurseries, which sells thousands of plants, trees and shrubs to local authorities, parks and landscapers from its base at Swanley in Kent.However, the company has already spent at least Ā£500,000 on building a post-Brexit control post on its eight-hectare (20-acre) site, which will become obsolete once the deal is implemented.Richard McKenna, the managing director of Provender, hopes the UK-EU deal will convince some of its European suppliers to restart exports.
Photograph: Martin Godwin/The GuardianRichard McKenna, the managing director of Provender, said the business constructed the āsealed building and bought four electric forklifts to operate in itā to allow inspections of lorry loads of valuable trees and shrubs imported from the continent.The company decided to build the site to reduce the ādelays and damageā it has experienced when smaller loads are inspected at government-run border control posts such as Sevington.āIt cost a lot for a barn, but it gave us security as a business,ā said McKenna.Despite this, McKenna hopes the SPS deal will convince some of Provenderās European suppliers, previously deterred by the paperwork and potential pitfalls of post-Brexit trade with the UK, to restart exports.āWe need to see the small print on the agreement,ā he said. āIt could have been sooner, but we are pleased that it is happening.āThe deal is not expected to be implemented until the first quarter of 2028, meaning businesses such as Provender will still be subject to the current border arrangements for more than a year.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn the meantime, Fran Barnes, the chief executive of the HTA, called for āsome easements as a transition arrangement that are pragmaticā to help horticulture businesses, such as fewer or no checks on imports of lower-risk products.Eagle conceded the implementation date was later than the mid-2027 targeted when former prime minister Keir Starmer announced his EU āresetā deal in May 2025.Starmerās replacement by Andy Burnham led to a āpauseā in negotiations with Brussels, said Eagle, with the upcoming November summit pushed back from July.The original target was āalways a very, very ambitious timescale,ā she said. āThat extra time has meant we could deal in more coherent way with some of the knottier, thornier issues on things like pesticides.āThe UK has continued to use some pesticides and fungicides that are banned in the EU.This has prompted industry concerns that British potatoes grown in 2027, treated with pesticides banned in the EU, could need to be thrown away if the resulting frozen chips went on sale after the dealās implementation.āWe are very well aware of these kinds of issues and the EU is also very aware it doesnāt want to be seen to be wasting food,ā Eagle said.British exporters of produce including seed potatoes and some mussels also hope the SPS deal will allow trade halted by Brexit to restart.āWe have been waiting for this moment, but it all depends on the timing of the deal,ā said Adam Taylor, a director of Taylors Bulbs in Lincolnshire, which supplies tulip, daffodil and other bulbs to garden centres and nurseries across the UK and Ireland.A Brexit certification disagreement halted exports of British seed potatoes, particularly from Scotland, to the EU. Taylors underwent the ālaborious and expensiveā work of setting up an Irish business in order to keep suppling the Republic of Ireland.āWhen things go back closer to how they were before Brexit, I hope our Irish customer base will reflect on the loyalty given to them,ā he said.