The removal of border checks and paperwork on plant imports will eliminate £60m of annual costs for the horticulture industry when a new UK-EU deal takes effect, the environment secretary Angela Eagle said. The Guardian reported that Eagle made the statement during a visit to a plant nursery in Kent ahead of a UK-EU summit scheduled for 20 November, when the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement is due to be signed.
The deal, largely agreed between the two sides in May, will permit the removal of the vast majority of physical checks and most accompanying certificates and paperwork on imports and exports of plants, food and animal products. The Horticultural Trades Association calculated that current costs to horticulture businesses include plant health inspection fees, phytosanitary certificates, document and identity checks, port fees, agents' fees, additional labour costs and extra haulage costs, totalling £60m annually. These figures do not account for late delivery penalties or sales lost because of port delays or damage to goods. Eagle said the promise of the deal was that it should put downward pressure on food prices, although she would not confirm the deal would lower the cost of food in the UK.
The agreement addresses trade disruption caused by Britain's departure from the EU, which triggered the introduction of border checks on imports and exports. The National Farmers' Union reported that exports of British food and drink to the EU have collapsed by more than a third since Brexit, with egg, chicken and potato producers badly affected. British exporters hope the deal will allow trade halted by Brexit to restart. Adam Taylor, a director of Taylors Bulbs in Lincolnshire, which supplies tulip and daffodil bulbs across the UK and Ireland, said the company had undergone laborious and expensive work setting up an Irish business to keep supplying the Republic of Ireland after a Brexit certification disagreement halted exports of British seed potatoes to the EU.
Some businesses have already invested heavily in post-Brexit infrastructure that will become redundant. Provender Nurseries, one of the UK's largest wholesale nurseries based in Swanley, Kent, spent at least £500,000 building a post-Brexit control post on its site, including a sealed building and four electric forklifts to allow inspections of lorry loads. Managing director Richard McKenna said the company built the site to reduce delays and damage it had experienced at government-run border control posts. Despite this investment, McKenna expressed hope that the SPS deal will convince some of Provender's European suppliers, previously deterred by post-Brexit paperwork, to restart exports, though he stressed the need to see the small print.
The deal is not expected to be implemented until the first quarter of 2028, meaning businesses will remain subject to current border arrangements for more than a year. This represents a delay from the mid-2027 target announced when former prime minister Keir Starmer announced his EU reset deal in May 2025. Eagle explained that Starmer's replacement by Andy Burnham led to a pause in negotiations, with the summit pushed back from July. She said the extra time had allowed negotiators to deal more coherently with complex issues including pesticides, as the UK continues to use some pesticides and fungicides that are banned in the EU. Fran Barnes, chief executive of the Horticultural Trades Association, called for transitional easements such as fewer or no checks on lower-risk product imports to help businesses during the waiting period.
For UK savers, borrowers, businesses and investors, the deal means horticulture companies can expect significantly lower operating costs once implemented, potentially improving business profitability and competitiveness, though widespread benefits depend on the timing and scope of the final agreement details.