The planned rollout of the final phase of post-Brexit checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain next week has been slammed as “bureaucratic madness”, by M&S CEO Stuart Machin.
The final phase of the Windsor Framework agreement agreed in February 2023 – which covers all retail goods (other than those sold loose), is due to be implemented on Tuesday (1 July), despite the UK’s signing of a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement with the EU in May.
The checks would add “yet another layer of unnecessary costs and red tape for food retailers like M&S”, Machin said on Friday, with more than 1,000 of the retailer’s products destined for Northern Ireland still needing to carry ‘Not For EU’ labels, while a further 400 would need to go through additional checks via the framework’s ‘Red Lane’ – designed for GB goods heading to Ireland and/or the rest of the EU.
Speaking on social media platform ‘X’ Machin described the scenario as “confusing for customers, and completely unnecessary given the UK has some of the highest food standards in the world”.
The EU SPS deal, with the date of its implementation yet to be confirmed, would be “game-changing”, Machin added, and “can’t come soon enough”.
His comments were echoed by Provision Trade Federation director general Rod Addy, who told The Grocer “ploughing on” with the extra border checks, represented “a completely unnecessary cost, given the direction of travel outlined in the EU-UK Common Understanding”.
The framework’s requirements “could easily be paused until January 2027 while the small print is worked out”, he added, while noting there had been “no pressure” from either the European Commission, nor the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.
Read more: The Windsor Framework isn’t delivering for Great Britain-Northern Ireland trade. And it’s about to get worse
“This all seems to have been driven by parties within the UK government who think it’s important that we be seen to stick to our promises to keep relations with the commission sweet,” Addy said.
Supermarkets faced a “huge challenge maintaining choice for their customers in Nortthern Ireland”, given the need for thousands of additional products to carry the ‘Not For EU’ labelling from next week, said British Retail Consortium director of food and sustainability Andrew Opie.
But despite the concerns of the food sector on the issue, the government, at the time of writing on Friday, offered no indication it had plans to push back the rollout of the framework’s final phase, despite ditching planned checks on some fresh produce exports to the EU earlier this month.
The Cabinet Office told The Grocer that Defra had published “comprehensive guidance on gov.uk to support businesses in interpreting the legislation and understanding the extent to which their goods might need to be labelled”.
A government spokesperson said: “Not for EU labelling was agreed as part of the Windsor Framework in 2023. Labelling will only be required for certain food and drink products. Many things like cakes, bread, pasta and alcohol will not need to be labelled.
“And when implemented, agreements we secured at the UK-EU Summit will reduce the need for this labelling and make it easier to move goods between the UK and Europe.
“We will continue to work closely with businesses to support them in implementing these arrangements, helping them to continue to move their goods smoothly across the UK.”
No comments yet