Food labelling New rules 'will add costs and raise prices'

Forcing all UK supermarkets to put "not for EU" labels on meat, dairy and plant products in a move to assuage the concerns of unionists in Northern Ireland will force up prices and undermine the war against inflation, ministers have been told.

- Daniel Boffey

After months of uncertainty about the post-Brexit regulations, the government has said it will legislate so that the labelling requirement is universal from October as part of a "safeguarding the union" deal with the Democratic Unionist party.

The government is trying to convince the DUP, Northern Ireland's biggest unionist party, to return to the Stormont power-sharing executive after a bitter two-year standoff over the trade border in the Irish Sea created by Brexit.

As part of the new deal, ministers have said they will go further than is required under the so-called Windsor framework agreement with the EU, which is designed to ensure that meat, dairy and plant products do not enter the single market via Northern Ireland.