UK and EU agree draft deal to scrap post-Brexit food export checks, in biggest step yet in the Brexit reset
The UK and the European Union have agreed a draft sanitary and phytosanitary deal that would remove most post-Brexit checks on food and farm exports, ahead of a UK-EU summit later this month.
The United Kingdom and the European Union have agreed a draft deal to remove post-Brexit checks on food and agriculture exports, in what is being described as the most significant part of the so-called Brexit reset agreed so far. The BBC reported that a 200-page draft text for the sanitary and phytosanitary, or SPS, agreement — the rules governing animal and plant health in trade — has been circulated to EU nations in Brussels for consideration at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday.
The draft is the centrepiece of a wider package being prepared for a UK-EU summit later this month, now due to be held on 20 November. Alongside the food text, draft texts on linking emissions trading systems and on a youth travel and work scheme have also been circulated, together with a 15-page draft joint statement for the two sides’ leaders. The summit itself had been delayed, in part after Labour replaced its leader in July, and Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he wants to use it to launch a conversation about a longer-term path for Britain’s relationship with the EU.
For exporters, the practical change would be sweeping. The draft would remove the need for export health certificates costing around £200 per consignment, phytosanitary certificates costing about £25, and a range of related charges including inspector fees, organic certification costs, some port fees and sampling fees, for goods moving in both directions between Britain and the EU.
It would also allow several British products that have been shut out of EU markets since Brexit to return. Under the draft, UK exports to the EU of fresh sausages and burgers, shellfish from domestic waters and seed potatoes would be able to resume, and pet passports would return for British animals travelling into Europe, ending a system that has required owners to obtain fresh veterinary documentation for each trip.
In return, Britain would commit to observing and adapting to existing EU regulations on plant, animal and food trade standards as those rules change, a process known as dynamic alignment. The government has already announced a European Partnerships Bill, which would provide the legal mechanism to apply new EU rules and regulations in Britain.
The government claims the UK economy will eventually see £5.1 billion worth of annual benefits from the deal. That figure is a government projection of eventual gains, not a saving already achieved, and business groups have welcomed the direction while warning that the detail will matter. William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chamber of Commerce, told the BBC’s Today programme that businesses generally thought the measures were a net positive, bringing lower costs, reduced delays and increased market access.
The background is a sharp fall in food trade since Britain left the EU’s single market. British food exports to the trading bloc have decreased by a third, according to the National Farmers’ Union, and a UK body representing small businesses warned in May 2026 that small firms were being pushed out of EU markets because of red tape and rising costs, according to Reuters. The draft SPS agreement is intended to reverse much of that friction, with minutes of a joint UK-EU meeting in February 2026 already noting that the forthcoming agreement would slash red tape for seafood exports.
What happens next is a process, not a single signature. The draft agreements will be discussed on Wednesday at a meeting of EU ambassadors, known as Coreper, the body in which member states’ representatives prepare EU decisions. Key details on the planned numbers in a Youth Experience Scheme still have to be finalised at a political level in the coming days, and the Council of the EU must endorse an agreement before it can take effect.
The timing of implementation is also still unsettled, and reports differ. The Guardian reported a possible start in the first quarter of 2028, while the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has briefed industry leaders that implementation might slip to 2028, with its published target remaining mid-2027. Neither government has published the full agreement, and businesses cannot use the proposed arrangements until they are approved and implemented.
For farmers, food producers and small exporters, the practical question now is whether the certificates and checks named in the draft actually disappear once the deal takes effect, and how quickly. If the text clears Wednesday’s ambassadorial meeting and is endorsed at the summit, it would mark the clearest break yet with the post-Brexit border regime for food — but until then, it remains a draft, and the exporters it is meant to help are still working under the old rules.
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