The head of Brexit advisory at Pinsent Masons said government proposals for a future customs relationship with the EU include interesting suggestions for handling the Irish border.

Guy Lougher said Future customs arrangements: a future partnership “indicates clearly that the Government is very alive to the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland’s interactions with Ireland, and is looking to preserve the status quo as far as possible”.

The paper is the first in a series setting out the UK government’s vision for a future partnership with the European Union.

The government’s key objectives are to ensure trade with the EU is frictionless as possible, to avoid any form of hard Irish border, and to establish an independent international trade policy.

Mr Lougher (pictured) said: “One interesting suggestion, as a means of avoiding customs infrastructure, is that of a cross-border trade exemption for smaller traders; from a UK perspective it may address many of the concerns about the potential adverse impact of enhanced customs processes on cross-border trade, and especially in the agri-food sector; but from the EU perspective, they are likely to be concerned whether it may create precedents elsewhere.

“Another concrete suggestion in the paper is that of an agreement on regulatory equivalence for agri-food, as a means of minimising as far as possible sanitary and phytosanitary checks. Both suggestions are potentially significant given the proportion of cross-border trade accounted for by agri-food businesses.

“The paper raises a number of issues on which the EU will require the UK Government to provide further detail on its proposals, but there will also be a need for the EU to consider how it will respond to the broad principle suggestions which the UK Government has made.”