GOODS coming to Britain from the EU will face import controls from January 1 next year, Michael Gove has warned.
The Cabinet Office minister confirmed UK and EU traders would have to submit customs declarations and be liable to goods checks once the Brexit transition period finishes at the end of the year.
The British Retail Consortium warned the Government would have to move fast to get the infrastructure in place for the start of 2021.
It said without adequate preparations the availability of goods on shelves would be disrupted with fresh fruit and vegetables especially vulnerable.
In a speech to a stakeholder event yesterday, Mr Gove confirmed import controls on EU goods at the border would be imposed after the transition period ended on December 31.
"The UK will be outside the single market and outside the customs union, so we will have to be ready for the customs procedures and regulatory checks that will inevitably follow," he said.
"As a result of that we will be in a stronger position, not just to make sure that our economy succeeds outside the European Union but that we are in a position to take advantage of new trading relationships with the rest of the world," added Mr Gove.
Andrew Opie for the Consortium said ministers needed to set out detailed plans on how the controls would be implemented if the flow of goods to consumers was to be maintained.
"It is not enough to announce checks will take place, we must see plans now as to how this will be possible in practice or it will be consumers who suffer on January 1," he said.
Meanwhile, the SNP warned the UK Government was gearing up to “sell out” Scottish fishing by trading off the nation’s fishing industry ahead of the Fisheries Bill returning to the House of Lords today.
Deidre Brock, the party’s Rural Affairs spokeswoman, said that it was “clear as day” Scotland’s fishing industry would be on the table “as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the EU on the future relationship”.
Last month, the PM insisted the Tory Government would “not trade away Britain’s fishing rights as they were traded away…in the accession negotiations in the early 1970s”.
Today, fishing industry representatives, including Elspeth Macdonald, Chief Executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, will give evidence to a Lords inquiry into EU access to UK fishing waters post-Brexit.
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