The UK Government is still only operating a partial import control regime after delaying full controls five times since the end of the European Union exit transition period in December 2020, says the watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) in a report, ‘The UK border: Implementing an effective trade border’.
The NAO recalls that the Government had said it intended to introduce a full import control regime in January 2021. In that month, when Brexit became formal, the EU introduced full import controls on goods moving from the UK to the EU. The NAO reports that the UK Government is introducing new controls in 2024 about sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) goods and safety and security declarations (SSDs), focusing on higher-risk areas such as plant and animal products that are more likely to be carrying pests and disease. The latest phase came into force in April, and with further controls to come.
The NAO notes that the Government’s 2025 UK Border Strategy lacks a clear timetable and an integrated cross-government delivery plan, with departments such as the Cabinet Office, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the Home Office leading different aspects of implementation. Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, says: โThe UK leaving the EU created a large-scale change in arrangements for the movement of goods across the border. However, more than three years after the end of the transition period, it is still not clear when full controls will be in place. The border strategy has ambitious plans to use technology and data to facilitate trade while managing risks. To achieve its objectives, government requires strong delivery and accountability โ including a more realistic approach to digital transformation โ together with effective monitoring to enable future improvements.โ
Among Government spending on infrastructure and staff that were ultimately not needed: the Government procured or built sites at Dover White Cliffs and Dover Bastion Point at a combined cost of ยฃ62m, and later decided they were not required when it adopted the new risk-based import control regime for SPS goods, which reduced the volume of goods that required checking. HMRC also spent ยฃ258m between 2020-21 and 2023-24 on building and running eight temporary border facilities to cope with additional demand that did not fully materialise. Port Health Authorities (PHAs) recruited around 520 staff to undertake SPS checks; 370 were not required.
The UK Government plans to have introduced most import controls, including customs checks, most SPS controls, and SSDs, by October. The NAO reports that ‘Border Force is responsible for undertaking checks on goods regarding issues such as customs compliance and anti-smuggling activity. The Home Office intends to use the new information from SSDs to improve Border Forceโs targeting of activity to manage risk,” through a new IT system, Cerberus. However, the NAO points to ‘challenges’, such as IT complexity. The report notes that the authorities have to ‘choose the appropriate balance’ on managing the border (picturec: Dover), ‘between operating a higher level of checks to maintain security and increase compliance, and encouraging the free flow of goods’.
Background
SSDs, which pre-date Brexit, ‘provide information on goods crossing the border, which helps Border Force to target its interventions, to try and prevent the movement of illicit goods such as drugs and weapons’, according to the report. The Home Office says that SSDs will bring ‘a transformative improvement to the security baseline for EU imports’ to the UK.
Since the vote for Brexit in 2016, the NAO has reported six times on the management of the UK border, most recently in November 2021. The report covers operation of the border since December 2020; introduction of a full border control regime; future risks, challenges and opportunities relating to the management of the border; and Northern Ireland. For the 67-page report, visit the NAO website.
Politics
The UK border is a sensitive political issue. Last week Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer included a ‘border security command’ as one of his party’s ‘six steps for change’ promised if Labour were to win a likely autumn 2024 general election. Meanwhile in a recent speech on national security, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that ‘criminal gangs keep finding new routes across European borders’.
