Many members working in the agri-foods and related sectors will be aware of the current negotiations to produce a new Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement with EU for movements between UK and EU. This includes Northern Ireland. Further details can be found on the Gov.uk website.
CILT (UK) covered this issue in last week's bulletin, “Businesses Urged to Prepare for New UK-EU SPS Trade Agreement”, which highlighted the UK government’s plans to simplify trade in food, plants and animal products between the UK and EU, potentially reducing border checks, certification requirements and supply chain delays.
CILT (UK) has now been invited by DEFRA to join the group of organisations to participate in communications and consultations in the preparation process for these changes. We want to hear from CILT (UK) members who are likely to be affected by the proposed changes, to feed in their comments, questions and highlight problems which need to be addressed. It is our intention to then write to the Permanent Secretary, offering to organise a roundtable to follow on , very much as we did during the Brexit Transition period, to pick up on sector specific issues, seek to ensure operational and administrative problems are defined addressed and solutions produced.
Members inputs are requested by 5pm on Monday 15th June to enable this to be included in preparations for the DEFRA meeting on Wednesday 17th June. Please feed comments to policy@ciltuk.org.uk