SPS Readiness Business Advisory Council
Helping to strengthen the quality and credibility of sanitary and phytosanitary policy.
Terms of reference
The sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) Readiness Business Advisory Council is a small group of trusted cross-sector stakeholders who provide rapid, practical feedback to ministers, test policy ideas in confidence, and help identify risks, opportunities, and real-world impacts. This helps to strengthen the quality and credibility of SPS policy.
The discussions will focus on shaping policy thinking and readiness (including assumptions, implementation approaches, and insights), while explicitly excluding decision making, negotiations, representation of individual commercial interests, and detailed operational delivery planning.
Meeting dates
The Business Advisory Council meets every 2 months.
Membership
The membership has been capped at 13 and were chosen following consultation with other government departments, Devolved Governments and partner organisations. This ensured that the membership is diverse in size and represents the range of the sectors and supply chain positions affected by SPS requirements.
The members are:
- Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC)
- Amivet
- British Ports Association (BPA)
- British Retail Consortium (BRC)
- Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)
- Food and Drink Federation (FDF)
- Horticultural Trades Association (HTA)
- Logistics UK
- National Farmers Union (NFU)
- Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce (NICC)
- Ramsden International
- Shellfish Association of Great Britain
- UKHospitality
Meeting minutes