Trade in plants and plant products would be seriously affected if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, a Defra technical notice has revealed.
There arecurrently no border controls on most imports and exports of plants and plant products between the UK and the EU, while some plants that present a higher biosecurity risk are managed under the EU plant passport regime.
In the event of a ‘no deal’, however, exporting to EU countries would become considerably more complicated since the UK would be treated as a third country and would lose access to the plant passport scheme, Defra confirmed.
This would affect businesses that export to the EU, import from the EU, and move some plants and plant products within the UK, but trade with third-party countries would not be directly impacted.
In order to export controlled plants and plant products to the EU the UK would need to meet EU third country import requirements, including controls on all plants for planting and all wood packaging material.
As such, businesses would need to apply for a Phytosanitary Certificate (PC) from the relevant UK plant health authority before exporting, with some commodities requiring laboratory testing of samples to ensure they are free from pests and diseases.
Others would need to be inspected during the growing season and consignments may also be subject to checks at the EU border.
Importing would be simpler since the government has decided that the majority of plants and plant products are low-risk and should therefore continue to enter the UK from the EU freely, as they do now.
One exception would be products managed under the EU plant passport regime, such as certain potato, stonefruit and cabbage plants. These would be subject to UK import controls to maintain biosecurity while “minimising the impact on businesses”, Defra reported.
Consignments of such plants would require aPC issued in the country of export (or re-export), and the importer would need to inform the relevant plant health authority in the UK before the consignment arrived.
When moved within the UK, plants and plant products currently covered by the EU plant passport regime would be managed by a new UK regime and businesses would need to be authorised by the relevant UK plant health authority to issue a British plant passport.
