Seaborne Freight Debate

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Department: Department for Transport

Seaborne Freight

Marcus Fysh Excerpts
Tuesday 8th January 2019

(5 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Chris Grayling Portrait Chris Grayling
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I am not going to comment on individual tax affairs. All I am going to say is that due diligence was carried out into the participants in this business and no reason was found why they should not contract with Government.

Marcus Fysh Portrait Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
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It is very reassuring to hear about my right hon. Friend’s discussions with the ports of Dover and Calais and the contingency plans that he is putting in place. Will he tell us more about how companies can get to know what they have to do to make sure that their declarations are appropriately communicated to the port? That seems to me to be a potential pinch point that we need to look at.

Chris Grayling Portrait Chris Grayling
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Certainly one part of the no deal preparations that we are now going through—HMRC is very actively engaged in this—is about the declaration processes that businesses would need to go through. The reality is that this happens already. Goods are shipped from this country to Switzerland, for example, through established processes in this country and on the continent. We will need to ensure in the run-up to a no-deal Brexit that business is up to speed with what it needs to do. A huge amount of work in this respect is already happening.