Industry news
Brexit blog: SSPO calls for urgent redesign of export health certificate
Datetime：2021-03-31The Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation (SSPO) has said there is an urgent need for a redesign of post-Brexit paperwork to be simplified in order to avoid continuing damaging delays.
In particular, the key export health certificate which has been giving the industry such a headache since the UK left the EU on Jan. 1 needs a rapid overhaul, accoding to SSPO chief executive Tavish Scoot
"Despite improvements since January when it was taking many hours - and sometimes days - to process orders of seafood for the continent, orders are still being held up because of the bureaucracy of the extra paperwork," the SSPO wrote in a statement.
"It now takes about two hours for each seafood load to be processed and given an export health certificate for transport to the EU and, in some cases, this process is taking four hours or longer."
Scott, who has spoken with UK cabinet member Michael Gove, said Gove had given verbal assurances that the UK government would look to re-design, re-draw and simplify the export certificate, which can run to dozens of pages for each other.
According to SSPO data, Scotland's salmon farmers are collectively spending an additional ￡200,000 a month on extra paperwork as a result of Brexit. In January alone, the industry took losses of ￡11 million from lost orders, failed deliveries, unharvested fish and heavily discounted products at market.
"I welcome the commitment that the UK government has given to initiate a system review of export health certificates,"said Scott."They were never designed for perishable products like salmon and therefore never should have been the document we are forced to use as exporters."
