Brexit: government to stockpile processed food in case of ‘no deal’

Ministers working

Ministers working on contingency plan for
breakdown of £22bn EU food import industry

One-Minute Read

The government’s plan to cope with a no-deal Brexit scenario,
and ensuing chaos at ports, “includes emergency measures to keep
Britain’s massive food and drinks industry afloat – including
stockpiling ahead of exit day on 29 March next year”, says The Sun, which broke the story.

The EU is responsible for 97% of the £22 billion
worth of processed food and drinks imported to the UK, a sector
which employees around 400,000 British workers, the newspaper
reports.

The plan is one of around 300 contingency
measures which the government plans to start revealing in the
coming weeks as the Department for Exiting the EU ramps up
preparations for a no-deal Brexit under new chief Dominic
Raab.

Other measures include stockpiling of medicines, 37 million of which
are imported from the EU every month.

Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England,
has confirmed that “significant planning” is going on to ensure
that patients do not go without treatment if drugs are held up by
new border checks.

Ministers are also said to be looking at making
more use of alternative import routes via Spain or the Netherlands
to ease the expected pressure on Calais if the free movement of
goods between the UK and Europe is suspended without alternative
arrangements.

The UK’s complex network of food deals with the EU is
the “forgotten bread and butter issues of Brexit”, Julian Baggini
wrote in The Guardian last month.

Building Britain’s future food landscape will involve
a host of economic, social and ethical choices about how and where
we get our food, he writes, citing International Trade Secretary
Liam Fox’s refusal to rule out importing chlorine-washed chicken
from the US.

Bereft of (or liberated from) EU regulations,
the UK can either “lead a race to the top by improving standards,
or a race to the bottom in which we light a bonfire of regulations
in a shortsighted attempt to undercut our competitors”, he writes.
“It’s anyone’s guess which route we’ll take.”