UK Moving on Trade and Customs Bills to Implement Post-Brexit Trade Operation
A trade bill landed in British Parliament Nov. 7 that would lay the groundwork for a post-Brexit United Kingdom to be a part of more than 40 existing EU trade agreements as an individual entity, and a customs bill changing duties on goods is expected to be introduced to Parliament soon, the UK Department for International Trade (DIT) announced. The trade bill would establish an independent UK Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), ensure the UK government has legal abilities for gathering and sharing trade information, and enable the UK to independently join and implement the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), including the revised GPA. The TRA would be authorized to provide analysis of trade remedies imposed in other countries or territories, and of the impact of such measures on UK producers and exporters, the bill text says. The bill would enter into force on the day Parliament passes it.
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The customs bill, “which will enter Parliament shortly,” according to the DIT press release, would allow the UK government to create a customs regime independent of the EU and amend value-added and excise tax authorities. The bill will specify what duties apply to what goods, set preferential or additional duties in certain circumstances, “for example, to support developing countries,” and “maintain a functioning movement of goods from the day we leave the EU by continuing the VAT and excise regimes in line with the final deal reached in negotiations,” the release says.
The customs legislation “does not presuppose any particular outcome from the negotiations with the EU,” and will be mostly based on the EU’s Union Customs Code, according to an October white paper on the forthcoming bill prepared by the UK's Financial Secretary to the Treasury. However, “the Bill may make provisions that allow for divergence from EU law where it is necessary to do so, or where there is a clear benefit to business to diverge from it and such divergence is consistent with whatever bilateral arrangements the government agrees with the EU,” the paper says. The UK's exit from the EU is expected to be completed by the end of March 30, 2019.