Transcripts For BBCNEWS Spotlight 20201101

Brexit. The british people have spoken, and the answer is we are out. It might feel as though this story has been going on forever, but it is finally reaching a conclusion. And the irish sea border is coming. Brexit means brexit. Were going to make a success of it. If brexit means anything it means borders. Once the government decided that the uk would leave the Eus Customs Union and its Single Market it was inevitable that a harder border would have to be created somewhere. But where . One thing seemed certain it couldnt be an irish sea border. But where . It is something i will never agree to. Indeed in my judgement, it is something no british Prime Minister would ever agree to. The man who replaced theresa may was equally adamant that there could be no new border between ni and gb. No british conservative government could or should sign up to any such arrangement. But ultimately, the deal borisjohnson came up with, the ni protocol, keeps ni in the eus Single Market for goods. That deal means that the eus customs rules will now have to be enforced at our ports. Say hello to the irish sea border. And to get goods through it, youre going to need some very pricey paperwork of a type never before required to move goods between within the uk. I nearly choked when the pm said, dont worry about it, because all of these changes which affect Northern Ireland will be light touch. Light touch regulations which require firms to make declarations when they sell goods to another part of their own country. And what will these changes mean for ni consumers . This week in brussels, eu leaders are discussing a possible uk trade deal, but even that wouldnt solve all of Northern Irelands brexit headaches. A trade deal would help reduce the impact of a sea border, but it would not be enough to prevent significant change to our economic relationship with the rest of the uk. I know, i know ive been banging on about this for years. Barnier this and backstop that, yadda, yadda, yadda. And nothing ever really seems to happen. In fact, you can be forgiven if youve forgotten we did leave the eu earlier this year. But since then weve been in a transition period where the whole of the uk has continued to follow the eu rules. That means nothings really changed. But that ends on the ist of january at that point brexit becomes an economic and practical reality. And with time so short and uncertainty so high im getting out of the studio to explain what that might mean for you. And what better way to break down brexit, than to invite myself round and show what life might be like come ist of january. Ive come to one household to see what it could mean to them. From the food that we eat to shopping online, the true impact or brexit is about to become clear. But first we need to find out exactly what is going to change. Belfast harbour. This is where many of the products used by households and businesses enter Northern Ireland. Last year the equivalent of more than half a million freight vehicles used the harbour to bring goods back and forward across the irish sea. At the minute, this system runs smoothly and with minimal paperwork. But that could all be about to change. On the ist of january, when those vehicles leave Great Britain and come to Northern Ireland, itll be as if they are entering the eu. And the eu will need to verify that everything inside those containers is ok to enter the Single Market. That means new checks and extra documentation asjess sergeant from the institute for government think tank explains. The ni protocol requires eu law to be applied in Northern Ireland in certain areas such as customs, agriculture regulation and product standards. So what that means is that anything entering ni, needs to prove that it complies with those eu laws. And thatll mean there will need to be new paperwork, new checks and new processes on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland to prove that they comply with eu law. Does this represent a real change in ms economic relationship with the rest of the uk . I think it is. There is a change to the economic relationship and there will be new requirements that werent in place beforehand. Theres one piece of paperwork in particular that people in Northern Ireland will need to add to their ever growing brexit dictionary. The export Health Certificate. It sounds obscure but it could have major implications for the cost of food here. For one thing, the average person isnt even allowed to fill these out. Because they involve animal products, they need to be filled out by specially trained vets. To find out more, i went to speak to James Russell of the British Veterinary Association to find out more. In the simplest terms possible what is an export Health Certificate and why have they become so important . So an export Health Certificate is a veterinary certificate which needs to accompany every good which is either an animal or an animal product or a by product of an animals, so perhaps milk or cheese or Something Like that. So, the process really here is about traceability of our food and making sure that what is in the box or in the packet is actually what it is supposed to be. This is a complex certificate, which is going to take an awful lot of veterinary time to complete. So, within the European Union where we have the Single Market, we were able to move across borders without those Health Certificates. But as we move out of a transition phase at the end of december, we expect that those certificates are going to be required for every one of those goods. And we are talking about exporting, it is notjust about Great Britain into the eu. Those certificates are going to apply from goods going from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. That is exactly right we are going to see goods travelling across the irish sea being subject to these export Health Certificates. And these certificates will be needed for all commercial shipments of meat, fish and cheese going from great britian to Northern Ireland. This is not a one off cost. Certification will be needed for every product, every time. So that cost is going to be felt. Spotlight has spoken to other vets who will be involved in this certification process about the likely costs. And the news isnt good for Northern Ireland consumers. Filling outjust one of these export Health Certificates on something straightforward, like a single block of cheese, could increase its import cost by an extra £50. And at those prices, it could have implications for which products appear on our shelves. Meet mark. He presides over an impressive cheese counter in his belfast deli. When youre buying stilton, how much are you bringing in at a time . During the year youre probably talking every week would be maybe one and a half stone to maybe two. Coming up to christmas youd be getting in maybe 20 halves. English cheeses are among some of his best sellers. But hes bringing in small volumes perhaps a half stilton at a time, arriving by courier. Come the ist of january each individual shipment of cheese would need its own export Health Certificate, at least doubling the cost of getting it here. So, that piece of stilton, how much would that cost to bring in wholesale . Its roughly roundabout £60. So if a situation were to arise where youre being told you need a piece of administration or certification to bring that in, and thats costing 40, 50, 60 maybe more, for that one cheese, what does that mean for bringing in stilton . Its probably going to double the price of it. I would say that thered obviously be a pretty much of a decline in demand for it. You can take a £10 charge or Something Like that, because people will accept 5, 10, 5 even 20 but not when youre talking 100 in increase i mean thats just ridiculous. But cheeses from france, italy or the republic or anywhere in the eu could arrive with none of this new and expensive red tape. That wasnt what mark expected to happen after brexit. Youd end up in a situation where it would probably be easier and cheaper to bring in cheeses from spain, france, italy than it would to bring in one from england. Well, yeah. Thats the irony of it all. I remember in 2019, i was going round looking at english substitutes for french and italian and spanish cheeses, and scotland and wales as well but i cant believe its all flipped now. So, what impact could these changes have in our brexit house . Export Health Certificates sound obscure. Consumers will never see them or have anything to do with them but they could have major implications for the cost of food. And for some specialist products, they could disappear from the shelves entirely, like this english stilton. Weve seen the problems that a single, relatively simple ehc could cause for Specialist Food retailers in Northern Ireland. But when you pop down to the local supermarket for your weekly shop, is this really going to make any difference . Ok, so you may not care about stilton. But these changes could affect virtually all the food appearing on our supermarket shelves via big warehouses in Great Britain like this one. This is icelands huge Distribution Centre on the outskirts of edinburgh. Its here that items are picked from the shelves and sent out to shops across the uk. Every week, its sending 60 lorry loads of food to its Northern Ireland outlets. From january ist, every one of those lorries will have to deal with export Health Certificates. And it wont be just one of them. This trailer is being loaded up to go to Northern Ireland. Come the ist of january, any products going on here which contain milk, meat or fish will need to be certified by a vet. So thats notjust one certificate for the trailer, its dozens or potentially hundreds and all of those add time and money. Even everyday items, like a supermarket pizza, may require multiple export Health Certificates just to make it across that irish sea border. If i have got a pizza which has got ham on it and cheese on it and all of sudden we need at least two Health Certificates just for the toppings of that pizza, if we are tracing some cheese right back to the farm where that was milk coming out of the cow, the ham right back to the farm where it was a pig, there is a lot to do there. And a significant amount of veterinary involvement and veterinary time to achieve that. There may be some smaller producers and maybe some larger producers who simply decide that this is a cost of business that they are not willing to bear and dont carry out the exports that we might have anticipated that they would do. A supermarket Distribution Centre is effectively a slick, sophisticated machine. The danger is that all the new red tape associated with the irish sea border just slows that machine right down. Consumers may never actually see this new red tape, but they might well feel its effects at the supermarket till. Aodhan connolly of the ni retail consortium, fears the impact on consumers could be dramatic. An export Health Certificate, costs around £200 once youve factored in things like vets time and Everything Else that goes with it, and that needs to be for every product of animal origin. Now, on a usual supermarket load youre talking about 1,400 1,500 different products, and at a really busy time. So coming up to christmas, maybe 400 or 500 of those would need an export Health Certificate. Are we potentially talking thousands of pounds, tens of thousands of pounds extra per shipment . Unless we get derogations, unless we get mitigations we are talking tens of thousands of pounds per load in the worst case scenario. We cant afford it as an industry thats high volume, low profit margin. Northern ireland consumers cant afford it. And theres a very simple equation if the new costs are higher than the profit margin, then either the product or the Business Model will become unviable. So, in the worst case scenario, Aodhan Connolly fears that some supermarkets would have to consider whether Northern Ireland still made sense as a place to do business. Youre saying for some of them it might be the case that its simply the case that its just not worth doing business in Northern Ireland any more . Well, if somewhere is costing you money instead of making you money its a very simple rationale. What we can say is that were doing our best to work with the eu, work with the uk government to make those solutions work, but we need to see them, and we need to see them coming through now. From the supermarkets perspective what is possible that could actually reduce a lot of these potential burdens . Well, as the uk government defra are calling it, there is the supermarket solution. That means that there is a certain amount of trust given by the eu, but there is also a burden on us as retailers to be able to show where things are going and where they end up. Without a special deal, it seems supermarkets in Northern Ireland face an uncertain future. But even if the eu allows special treatment for the big supermarkets, it wouldnt solve all the issues for getting food into our market according to ian wright who represents food manufacturers in britain. I think there is another problem which is that for many, many british manufacturers and providers, producers, they wont be aware that Northern Ireland is now a different system and that they have to have different checks, different bureaucracy to go through. And the first time theyll become aware of it, is when their lorry or their van is turned round at stranraer. And, i think that is a big concern, not simply for the disruption that will cause on the day, but for those people, only coming to that realisation, however much communication is done, after the event is going to be very difficult. So, what could that mean for you . So if supermarkets find it more expensive to get their products into Northern Ireland its likely theyll put their prices up. And that means you might not be able to afford to buy as much in your normal weekly shop. Away from the main trade negotiations eu uk officials are trying to find ways to ease the movement of goods into Northern Ireland. The dup backed brexit but oppose the current deal. Dup mp Gavin Robinson says the onus is on the eu to make it work for Northern Ireland. Those consumer goods and domestic products that are coming for the domestic market, that will be consumed in Northern Ireland those goods are safe, that they comply with standards, standards that the eu recognise. We are all within the same regime at the moment and give that certainty and clarity to say that there will be no impediment from gb to ni because should they require some stringent measures which pragmatically do not need to be required. If they require them we could see some delay, increase in product cost or both and worse still potential withdrawal from the market. That is a dreadful place to be. Its somewhere we dont need to be. They need to have the resolve and the confidence to realise that stringency of checks is not required within that sector. But one prominent mep says there are limits to eu flexibility. Since Northern Ireland will now be a point of entry for the european Single Market, the standards we have need to also apply in Northern Ireland, because that is the whole idea of avoiding a hard border between the republic and Northern Ireland. We have always been very clear that we want as little bureaucracy as possible, however, the special situation in Northern Ireland is not only about avoiding a hard border between the republic and Northern Ireland, its also about protecting the integrity of our Single Market. Even on day1 of the new arrangement, checks on actual Food Products arriving into ni will have to take place. This process will be overseen by the eu but its local Civil Servants at the department of agriculture who will be doing the checks. Senior Officials Say that without a special deal for Northern Ireland it will be difficult, maybe impossible, to deal with this volume of checks. If theres no agreement i cannot deliver the checks that will be needed. With minimisation and with a contingency plan and with cooperation all parties involved, the uk and eu, and the work that were doing ourselves its still possible that we will be able to deliver checks sufficient to keep products moving. So, expensive and time consuming forms plus additional checks when goods arrive into Northern Ireland. A lot will hinge on how ready it is to implement these changes come the 1st of january. After years of discussion over where theyll be and how theyll look, we went to Belfast Harbour to find the new border posts. So, this is it. This doesnt look like very much at all, does it . Its just a piece of waste ground really where they store shipping containers, but this is going to be the new irish sea border. This is the site where theyre going to build the Border Control posts. But with under 70 days to go, construction hasnt even started. I think a big barrier to practical preparations for the ni protocol was the uk governments position at the beginning of this year. So at the beginning of this year it refused to publicly acknowledge the extent or at times even the existence of what it has signed up to in the protocol. We heard the pm say that there will be no new checks in the irish sea and that businesses should throw away Customs Declarations if they were given them, and that really prevented officials from talking to businesses, finding out what they would need in order to be able to comply with these new requirements. Well, all of these plant and Animal Health checks are going to be of great concern, particularly as its not clear the infrastructure or the personnel are in place. Now maybe they are, and we just havent been told. But that will be a concern, and again, this is all about being ready, so here we are just three months to go and we still dont know. Now, in almost no other business situation would you be asked to implement a completely new system, for one smaller bit of a big country, withjust three months to go. Both port operators and Civil Servants have told mlas they doubt theyll be able to deliver all these checks on time. Is the government going to be able to deliver all parts of this deal in terms of the checks and controls on 1stjanuary . I dont expect so. I think agricultural checks is going to be a big problem and i think the uk government is going to have to make a trade off between compliance and flow of goods. Its going to have to decide whether it wants to do everything by the letter of the law as it is required to do under the protocol because its applying eu law and so thats subject to Eu Commission oversight and potentially the European Court ofjustice or whether its going to prioritise getting goods into ni preventing them being held up by the big queues that enforcing all these checks in systems and traders that arent ready would cause. But its notjust food that comes across the irish sea. Most of what we buy online comes from warehouses in england and scotland, and all of those goods will need to have Customs Declarations when they come in to Northern Ireland. This depot on the outskirts of belfast deals with parcels, mostly from other parts of the uk. Its where the Virtual World of Online Shopping becomes physical. Come the first of january all commercial goods coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain will need a customs declaration. That will be the case even if theres a trade deal between the eu and uk. At the moment we are doing about 2,000 parcels a day, mainly coming in from gb and some ni own customer businesses as well. That, obviously during the covid lockdown, almost doubled within three months. I suppose in this business as well, the uk parcel business, customs just hasnt been an issue, because its not part of how this business works at the moment . No, thats correct. Theres never been an issue with customs. Were getting air freight, were getting sea freight and theres no issue with the customs side of the parcels. Currently none of the thousands of parcels moving daily from gb to ni, requires any customs documentation. But, from the first of january all of that is set to change. It might be something as simple as a sticker on the parcel, but at the minute we just dont know. We need to know the detail of what is actually required from ourselves on the first of january. We are now into october, were now coming into the busiest quarter of the year leading up to christmas and we will be struggling to get this in place for 1st january. The government has acknowledged that Customs Declarations can be complicated so its set up a trader support scheme at a cost of over £300m. For at least the next two years it will provide a free service to make sure traders have the right customs paperwork to get goods into Northern Ireland. But what could these changes mean in our brexit house . The government is making a big effort to try and keep Online Retailing just as simple as it is today, but if theres even a perception that Northern Ireland is a more difficult or expensive market, it may lead some smaller retailers to consider if it is even worth doing business here. So the practicalities of the new sea border will be challenging we asked to speak to the relevant uk ministers about these issues but none were made available. It is possible these issues can be mitigated but not entirely sold, but that will take a series of agreements between the eu and the uk and time insured. Time is short. Hello, for some of us october has been a very wet month, but there are signs of things looking drier and quieter in the first week of november. Notjust quieter in the first week of november. Not just yet as there quieter in the first week of november. Notjust yet as there is more rain in the forecast overnight courtesy of the frontal system the north, plenty of showers across northern scotland and Northern Ireland and they will tend to fade as the night wears on with clear spells in between. The rain keeps going along the front and that will ease off as the night wears on, and further south we will keep a lot of cloud which will produce outbreaks of rain as well. Very mild over further south, 15 more like four or six celsius further north. The system slides in south and east as we head through monday but further showers and spells of rain pushing in from the west and noticed a squeeze on the isobars and its another windy day where the wind is not a strong is through the weekend. Its a mixture of sunshine and showers but no showers will tend to merge through parts of Northern England and southern scotland to give a longer spell of rain at times. Still some gusty winds, 50 or 60 mph for southern and western coasts and also for exposed hills, and just starting to feel a bit cooler. Between eight and 14 celsius the top temperature on monday afternoon and stole the showers and longer spells of rain continued through monday evening through Northern Ireland and parts of southern and western scotland and into Northern England as well. As we go through monday into tuesday, tuesdayis go through monday into tuesday, tuesday is something of a transition day. It still windy but the winds will ease down there will be showers around. What we start to see is cold air flooding across the uk, around. What we start to see is cold airflooding across the uk, so around. What we start to see is cold air flooding across the uk, so where recently it has been mild, a difference in temperature and outbreaks of rain affecting parts of southern and south Eastern England for a time on tuesday, and some of that could be heavy and some sunshine but also showers, particularly the further north and west you are. The wind will be lighter but still noticeable, particularly for western and southern open hosts, but look at the temperatures on tuesday, more like between nine and 11 celsius, definitely the theme as we head through the latter half of the week. But we do start to see an area of High Pressure starting to build in from the west and that will quieten things down, so wednesday morning will be cold, and for many frosty as well and you can even see some patchy mist and fog, but where recently it has been very wet, the week ahead is looking much drier, but it will feel much colder both by day and night. Goodbye. This is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. In the us there are just 48 hours to go to the president ial elections and joe biden and donald trump are making a last weekend dash around states that could be the key to winning the white house. The government says that englands 4 week lockdown could be extended for longer, if Coronavirus Infection rates dont come down enough. We need to recognise that we do need to get the infection rate, the r rate, below one. We believe, on the basis of the evidence that we have, that we will be able to do so. 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