Licences to export food to the EU cost UK firms up to £65m last year

UK companies spent up to £65m last year on licences to export food and agricultural products to the EU - costs that the government is promising to eliminate as part of a new deal to be agreed by 2027.

- Kiran Stacey

Government figures published yesterday showed it issued 328,727 such licences last year, at a cost of between £113 and £200 each. That puts the total cost to business at somewhere between £37m and £65m.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister in charge of European negotiations, will today pledge to eliminate such costs and secure a new agreement with the EU in the next 18 months.

In a speech at the Spectator offices in London to be hosted by the leading Brexiter Michael Gove, Thomas-Symonds will put forward a stridently political argument for becoming closer to the EU.

Ministers have concluded in recent months that attempts to realign with Brussels have more public support than the approaches of either the Conservatives or Reform UK, which have promised to rip up Labour's renegotiated deal.