UK minister faces flak as EU exports fall 68% since Brexit

11 Feb '21

3 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

The way UK Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove has been handling exports to the European Union (EU) since the Brexit transition period ended has attracted a new wave of criticism. The volume of exports made through British ports to the EU reportedly fell by 68 per cent in January compared to the same month last year, and that drop has been largely attributed to problems caused by Brexit.

The Road Haulage Association (RHA) flagged the issue to Gove after surveying its international members.

In a letter to Gove dated February 1, RHA chief executive Richard Burnett pointed out that despite repeated warnings over several months of problems and calling for measures to lessen difficulties, the minister largely ignored them.

One example of the new difficulties facing exports that Burnett highlighted is the need to raise the number of customs agents to help firms with mountains of extra paperwork. There are 10,000 customs agents now, but this is still about a fifth of what the RHA says is required to handle the massive increase in paperwork facing exporters.

Burnett said that in addition to the 68 per cent fall-off in exports, about 65-75 per cent of vehicles that had come over from the EU were going back empty because there were no goods for them to return with, due to hold-ups on the UK side, and because some UK companies had either temporarily or permanently halted exports to the EU.

The RHA also warned in January that a 12-month grace period and urgent financial aid were needed to fix problems with the post-Brexit trade border in the Irish Sea. The UK government has instead allowed for just a six month grace period, meaning the full range of physical checks on imports will begin in July.

“We will have an economy looking to come out of lockdown at the same time as the UK is imposing a range of import controls on EU business that may be no more prepared than UK businesses have been—and possibly less so—and a supply chain that is incredibly reluctant to service the UK. The full Brexit crisis that we were predicting could well come into effect at that point,” Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, told a top UK daily.

Last month it emerged that a number of online retailers from the European Union are refusing to deliver goods to the UK because of new Brexit taxes that came into force.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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