Michael Cairnduff and his wife Lesley opened a pet food delivery business in County Down, Northern Ireland, six years ago — around the time of the Brexit referendum.
(Bloomberg) — Michael Cairnduff and his wife Lesley opened a pet food delivery business in County Down, Northern Ireland, six years ago — around the time of the Brexit referendum.
Back then, deliveries of the pet food brand Oscar would take about four working days to arrive from England.
That was until Britain left the European Union following its historic and divisive vote.
Today, the Cairnduffs regularly wait three weeks for a delivery and are bogged down with reams of paperwork for each shipment. They are also forced to hold three times as much stock as before Brexit, to prevent delays for the 130 homes to which they deliver each week.
Michael Cairnduff, 64, is hoping that life will become easier after an agreement to resolve a Brexit dispute over Northern Ireland’s trading arrangements.
“We’re self-employed, so we can’t afford to pay anyone to do all the paperwork for us,” he said. “It totally wrecks our work/life balance because we’re having to do a lot of unpaid admin.”
Read More: Brexit Deal Gives Sunak a Chance to End Years of EU Acrimony
Cairnduff is now hoping he can use the time freed up from paperwork to look for new customers.
“We hope to almost be back to where we were,” he said.
Cairnduff is among the retailers, food manufacturers, drugs companies and other businesses hoping that the movement of goods between Britain and Northern Ireland will become more streamlined following Monday’s agreement.
Prawn Sandwiches
Archie Norman, the chairman of Marks & Spencer Group Plc, said the deal was a “big step forward,” having previously complained that the existing Brexit measures would lift prices and reduce choice for customers.
Read More: M&S Chair Says UK Government’s ‘Baffling’ Post-Brexit Plans Will Wreck Trade
Norman said the new deal was “fundamentally good news” for the people of Northern Ireland, and the UK businesses which serve them, including M&S which had to cut 800 lines in its Republic of Ireland stores, including such items at free-range chicken, orchids and goods containing Parmesan, because of complex rules and excessive paperwork.
Supermarkets including M&S and J Sainsbury Plc are likely to be able to provide more of their own brand items to Northern Ireland, especially processed meats like sausages, burgers, mince and ready meals which have been subjected to EU regulations.
Sainsbury previously got around the problem by working with Belfast-based wholesaler Henderson Group.
Along with receiving a wider array of products, Northern Irish shoppers will also be able to access better deals, such as through Sainsbury’s price matching with Aldi.
If lorries transporting goods to Northern Ireland require less documentation and can avoid arduous checks at the border, UK grocers will be more confident that fresh products such as prawn sandwiches will arrive in store on time and not risk missing their shelf life.
Green Lane
Three years after the UK left the European Union, Sunak has agreed a deal with the EU which adds flexibility for goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland.
A “green” and “red” lane system separating goods traveling across the Irish Sea will replace existing checks, requiring less onerous checks and paperwork.
The deal has received a cautious welcome from industry.
Richard Torbett, chief executive officer at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said the agreement “appears to bring a return to a single UK market for medicines, providing the permanent solution that our members have been calling for.”
British scientists have also welcomed the prospect of the UK’s long-delayed re-entry into Horizon Europe, the EU’s €96 billion ($102 billion) science program.
“While money is always important for research, collaboration is just as important,” said John Hardy, chair of the Molecular Biology of Neurological Disease at University College London. “The UK dropping out of these collaborative schemes did harm to our standing and some of that harm will be irreversible.”
Horizon
“The UK’s science relationship with the EU has been ‘on ice’ for the last few years,” said Daniel Rathbone, assistant director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering.
“Negotiators should now press to associate the UK to Horizon Europe as soon as possible.”
The deal will also mean that the UK’s drugs watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, will be responsible for regulating drugs across the whole of the UK, after two years in which the European Medicines Agency retained jurisdiction for Northern Ireland.
This arrangement led to supply chain issues between the region and the rest of the UK.
–With assistance from Dasha Afanasieva and Eamon Akil Farhat.
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