UK must engage with EU over Northern Ireland

This column was originally published in Meat Management in July/August 2021

Several years ago it would have been quite unimaginable for the intricacies of trade requirements on chilled meat preparations to become national news. Even more interesting is that seemingly the entire UK population is highly informed and has strong views on the topic – it has truly become ‘water cooler conversation’ (metaphorically at least, I doubt even those not working from home will have access to a shared water cooler due to Covid…). I am of course referring to the so-called ‘Sausage Wars’ which have been waging, at least in the media, for quite a while now. This is one of the more bizarre by products to pop up from the Northern Ireland Protocol. However, this ‘war’ is about a lot more than the ability to send a chilled banger from Bolton to Belfast or from Devon to Derry. Lord Frost himself, quoted in the Belfast Telegraph, has acknowledged that ‘it is only a tiny part of the overall problem’ and that it is just one of a long list of issues related to the implementation of the Protocol. Even then, the ‘truce’ is only for a few months and will surely raise its head again towards the end of the grace period.

Sausages may have captured the imagination but there are many other, less totemic, issues which are yet to be resolved on trade of meat with Northern Ireland. Since the end of the Transition Period, trading from GB to NI has become significantly more difficult. There is huge complexity in navigating the various schemes in place. To list but a few: STAMNI (Scheme for Temporary Agrifood Movements to NI), TSS (Trader Support Service), UKTS (UK Trader Scheme), MAS (Movement Assistant Scheme) and DAS (Digital Assistance Scheme). This is a lot for a trader to get their head around, particularly when dealing with the ongoing impact of the Covid 19 pandemic.

Government assistance and facilitations to help traders to continue to supply the NI market are of course welcome, but they are largely geared towards those supplying retail, those supplying the hospitality sector in NI need to be included too. Furthermore, details of a reimbursement scheme of tariffs paid on goods ultimately consumed in NI are needed urgently. There are also types of meat other than chilled meat preparations which have had their supply chains disrupted. Due to how EU legislation is written, it is currently impossible to bring NI or EU fresh meat to GB for a process like cutting a beef fillet into steaks and to then send those steaks to NI or the EU from GB. This is proving difficult for companies to adapt to, given our previously highly interlinked supply chains. It seems a silly situation when you can’t bring goods from one part of the UK to another part and then send them back. These are the kind of issues we will be urging ministers and government to solve through positive engagement with the EU through our new Policy Paper: ‘UK Meat Trading: Review of Current Situation & Prospects for Trade Facilitation’.