The new delay comes as UK supermarkets struggle to keep shelves full amid a supply chain crisis caused by the pandemic and labor shortages that have been caused in part by the country’s exit from the European union. Some EU workers left after Brexit, and farms, food processing factories and truck companies can no longer hire in the European Union due to the UK’s new immigration rules.
Now, retailers are struggling to get the supplies they need for sales during the crucial holiday shopping season.
Europe is the most important food source for the British, as 30% of all food eaten in the UK is produced there, according to the British Retail Consortium. The country depends especially on Europe to get fresh food during the winter months.
After Brexit, the UK government introduced its own system of regulations for human, plant and animal health. The division means the two sides now have to carry out “sanitary and phytosanitary” controls at the border, checking the specialized documentation and doing some physical inspections, adding new barriers to trade.
Frost said the government’s new timetable for border controls was “pragmatic.”
“We want companies to focus on their pandemic recovery rather than tackling the new requirements at the border,” Frost said in a statement on Tuesday. “Companies will now have more time to prepare for these controls.”
The food and beverage industry attacked the government for the last-minute change, saying it penalizes companies that prepared for the new import regime on Oct. 1 and rewards companies that ignored the guidelines. officers.
“Many food and beverage manufacturers will be dismayed by the delay in this substantial change,” Ian Wright, director general of the Food and Beverage Federation, said in a statement: “With only 17 days to go, the carpet s ‘has stretched’.
The delay also gives EU producers an advantage over British companies whose products are already subject to full post-Brexit controls when exported to Europe.
“The repeated failure to implement full UK border controls on EU imports since 1 January 2021 undermines confidence among companies. Worse, it actually helps UK competitors,” he said. say Wright, citing the “asymmetrical nature of border controls.”
Industry groups have blamed labor shortages on a tight labor market and an exodus of EU citizens. The Road Haulage association says the UK lacks close to 100,000 truck drivers, 20,000 of whom are EU nationals who left the country after Brexit.
There was a record 1 million jobs in the UK between June and August, the National Statistics Office said on Tuesday. Many employers have not been able to hire replacement workers from the European Union due to the stricter immigration rules introduced by the UK government after Brexit.
Wright has warned that the lack of products could be here to stay. According to his estimates, the food and beverage industry exceeds 500,000 workers.
“The result of labor shortages is that the system just in time has maintained supermarkets, convenience stores and restaurants, so the food has reached the shelf or the kitchen, just when you need it, no longer it works, ”he said last week during an event hosted by the Institute for Government.
“And I think it won’t work again, I think we’ll see that we now have permanent shortages,” he said.
The British Confederation of Industry said on Tuesday that delaying border controls could help ease pressure on supply chains ahead of the busy holiday season. But he warned that the impact will be “fleeting” unless the issues facing companies are addressed.
“When supply bottlenecks are caused by labor shortages, the UK should use immigration levers to ease short-term pressures,” said Sean McGuire, European director of the CBI, in a statement.