Iconic foods like Cornish pasties and Melton Mowbray put at risk by Brexit

The government plans to set up its own scheme for protecting the names of products from the nation’s food and drink manufacturers has a ‘massive Brexit black hole’ according to campaigners Best for Britain.

In the guidance released today Defra says that local authority trading standards bodies will be responsible for enforcement of new ‘geographical indication’ (GI) protection schemes.

But cash for the council-run service, which protects consumers from unfairness and illegal practices, has fallen from £213m in 2009 to £105m in 2018, with the number of enforcement officers slashed by 56 percent.

Last year in London alone, 1,350 people reported a business or person to their council’s trading standards department. But this led to just 44 visits and 363 warning letters being sent.

Under the current status quo, food and drink manufacturers in the EU, including those in the UK, can protect their product names under regulations laid down by the trading bloc, and which ensure countries comply with the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). It ensures UK GIs – which number 86 in total and include 76 agricultural and food products and five wines, and five spirits – are protected from imitation.

If a no-deal Brexit ensues, the UK government said its own GI scheme and will “broadly mirror” the existing EU system but the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) have said that the greater than 50% cut in trading standards in under a decade throws doubt on the UK’s ability to carry out any meaningful checks on businesses after Brexit.

Commenting, Best for Britain supporter Tim Farron MP said:

“The government are creating a new scheme but then are asking local government, already cut to the bone to police it. This plan has a massive Brexit Black hole in it and Michael Gove just doesn’t care. He is passing the buck to hard-pressed councils.

“Post-Brexit shopping aisles could be flooded with cheap imitation foods pushing out much-loved classics like pork pies and clotted cream. This is not what people voted for.

“The government have been shown to have done the bare minimum here and that is scandalous.”