Marks & Spencer chair Archie Norman has signalled the likelihood of higher food prices later this year and lambasted “pointless” rules affecting business in Ireland following Brexit.
Norman told BBC’s Radio 4’s Today programme that food price inflation could reach 10% and also condemned the bureaucracy involved in transporting foods to Ireland – and Northern Ireland, because of its shared border with the Republic.
Norman said: “It wouldn’t be surprising to see food price inflation over the course of the year running towards 8% to 10%, but we don’t know that yet because it runs through the year – some has run through now but there is quite a lot still to come.”
He said although grocers will have to pass on some food price inflation to shoppers, consumers’ savings amassed during the pandemic have buoyed spending.
Norman said: “The crunch is not going to be now, it is going to be in the autumn after people have come back from their holidays, spent their money and there is nothing left in the kitty.”
He said exporting to Ireland now takes 30% more driver time and associated bureaucracy – including Latin descriptors for animal products – and costs M&S £30m more than previously.
Further measures affecting goods moving between Northern Ireland and the Republic have been proposed by the EU. Norman said: “The EU is looking for us to impose comparable controls for Northern Ireland and were that to happen it would mean quite a lot of products from the UK simply wouldn’t get to Northern Ireland and what does go there would be very, very costly.”
He described UK government plans for reform of the rules as a “triumph of common sense over rules-based mentality” that would “make sure, at a time of inflation, that the Northern Ireland people can get the fresh food they are used to and are entitled to”.
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