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UK ports have demanded compensation from the Labour government if it strikes a deal to lower trade barriers with the EU, after they were forced to spend millions of pounds on building post-Brexit border control facilities.
The British Ports Association has written to ministers warning that its members risked losing large sums after constructing high-tech checkpoints, many of which had been barely used, if checks on EU animal and plant products were removed.
It said a letter sent to the Cabinet Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had highlighted how port owners had “built a series of expensive and high-spec Border Control Posts at the direction of government”. The letter was sent following Labour’s election victory earlier this month.
The BPA told the Financial Times that ports feared a UK-EU deal to reduce the need for checks, promised by Labour, could make the border control posts redundant.
The industry group, whose members include the UK’s largest port owners, said that while an agreement with the EU was welcome, “ports should not have to repeatedly incur costs because of changing political winds”.
“We are seeking a conversation on how the sector might be reasonably compensated,” it added.
The letter marks the latest complication in the rollout of the UK’s post-Brexit border regime, which has been fraught with delays since ports were asked to build new facilities to check EU products that had previously been imported seamlessly through the bloc’s single market.
During its election campaign, Labour pledged to strike a veterinary deal with the EU that would prevent “unnecessary border checks and help tackle the cost of food”, as part of plans to tear down trade barriers.
The government has previously said it spent £200mn co-funding facilities to handle checks at 41 ports in the wake of the UK leaving the EU.
The call for compensation comes as the chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to disclose a near-£20bn hole in the public finances on Monday, accusing the Conservatives of a “failure” to run the government finances properly.
Ports reported that the new border control posts are being underused, preventing them from levying charges on traders and recouping their investments.
The Financial Times reported in April that the government had planned to not fully implement physical checks on incoming goods when the border controls began that month in order to avoid lorry queues at the border.
Mike Sellers, director of Portsmouth International Port, said that Defra had encouraged the city council-run harbour to construct a facility able to process up to 80 checks a day. But, he added, the checkpoint, which required two acres of land and £6mn of council funds, only carried out that amount of checks each month.
Meanwhile, a border facility at Poole Harbour in Dorset has completed just two sanitary checks since the new border regime came into force, the BPA said.
Such an agreement could take a number of forms. These include a “New Zealand-style” deal that only partly reduces checks, and a “Swiss-style” approach, which could remove almost all red tape but would require the UK to follow EU law and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
Port owners had already demanded compensation from the Conservative government, which delayed implementation of Brexit border checks and published plans for a “contactless digital border” that would reduce the need for border control points, after they were constructed.
Defra said: “Protecting UK biosecurity remains one of our key priorities. We will continue working with border control posts to ensure they operate effectively and are resourced appropriately.”
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