The Customs Tariff (Establishment) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2025

James Wild Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 General Committees

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Barker. As the Minister said, this statutory instrument clears up a couple of errors, one of which happened on our watch, as he pointed out—fair cop; we plead guilty to that one. The other part of the instrument corrects a previous error by reinstating the 14% import duty for fruit jellies, marmalades, fruit or nut purée and fruit or nut pastes.

There is no impact assessment for the instrument because, as the explanatory memorandum says, the impact on the private and public sector is expected to be minimal, but I did get the House of Commons Library to do a bit of research for me. According to HMRC’s trade tariff tool, the incorrectly applied 0% tariff on jams, fruit jellies, marmalades, fruit or nut purée and fruit or nut pastes appeared on July 2025, and the UK imported roughly £3.2 million of such products in 2024. I am keen to understand from the Minister how the error occurred. Was it simply human error? What measures are in place to prevent slightly more important tariff codes being incorrectly entered, with the impact that that could have?

Tariffs are taxes, of course, with higher prices passed on to consumers. We have just had a Budget that increased taxes on incomes, savings and employment, and that introduced a new tourist tax and a taxi tax. We now have another one: the marmalade tax. Marmalade makers in Peru will be giving the Minister a Paddington stare after this.

On basmati rice, as the Minister said, this was an error made by the previous Conservative Government. The Library was unable to find any data on the volume imported, so how much does he expect the new £25 a tonne rate—the rate that should have been in place—to raise in the years to come? If he does not have those figures at his fingertips, perhaps he will write to me.

To conclude, higher import tariffs mean higher prices for consumers. There can be good reasons for them, such as ensuring a level playing field for our domestic producers, but it does seem that this Government have yet to come across a tax they do not like—even on marmalade.