Defra discussion on plant health fee hike bears little fruit

Last Thursday (6 March) I attended a meeting set up by the Fresh Produce Consortium for industry members to discuss with Defra their thoughts on the proposed changes to plant health fees. Specifically, the meeting was designed to enable members to put forward their concerns regarding the impact these changes are likely to have on their business.

Defra’s argument for the increase in fees is that it has been five years since the fees were last refreshed (2019) and this would enable full cost recovery (ie the fee increase would cover all the costs associated with the rollout of the scheme including a portion of overhead costs).

The suggested increase is 27 per cent, which represents a significant hike in costs at a time when the industry is already reeling from so many other post-Brexit changes – not least the Common User Charge and monies spent to adapt systems and train staff to manage the required new protocols.

Whilst delegates requested evidence of Defra’s efficiencies to make this increase more palatable, the government line at this point was that limited data is currently available, but information would be released in the near-future.

That would be fine were it not for the fact that the consultation period ends in two weeks’ time, so how is it possible to make an informed response if the data is not forthcoming ahead of the consultation deadline?

This means effectively we are commenting on a matter blind, without the critical facts to hand. Is this really the government’s idea of “working with industry stakeholders”?

In the context of this discussion, a primary point for debate was also an update on the physical and ID inspection fees for European and Rest of World imported goods and how these would be handled.

In a room that was largely filled with importers, it was gratifying to see a unanimous vote in favour of the Approved Operator Scheme (AOS) as the most viable solution to the new required border control checks, which allows eligible trained traders to carry out their own physical and identify checks. Given the fact the PML Seafrigo invested in this training as far back as 2023, this would be welcome news.

The pilot for this initiative was due to run from June to December 2024, with post pilot evaluation scheduled between December 2024 and February 2025. Yet, during this time, PML Seafrigo has been unable to provide the service associated with Approved Operator status.

Early adopters of the scheme such as PML Seafrigo will have waited for over two years post training for the scheme to be rolled out which seems an excessively long period, given the evaluation of the pilot is only allocated three months?

Whilst the room voted a resounding yes to the AOS, the final decision will of course be with the ministerial team. Let’s just hope that this time around, they do actually listen to those working at the coalface and that this is not yet another example of the government simply paying lip service.