Duties of Customs

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a very brief contribution to this debate. I support the powerful case that my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) made for preventing Parliament from being sidelined on this important issue, and welcome the very significant contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray).

The provision for customs duties is a crucial consideration in what is rapidly unravelling as the very expensive and complicated process of Brexit. The Home Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, held an inquiry looking in detail at customs operations in the delivery of Brexit. The evidence given to our Committee should give us all great cause for concern, particularly if the Government’s uncosted and unspecific plans proceed unamended. Delivery of our customs policy is a cross-Government process, with a wide range of Departments and agencies working in a delicate balance and under significant pressure.

The impacts of changes to our customs regime are widespread. There are serious concerns about the urgent work needed on port and transport infrastructure, customs operations, capacity in the Border Force, and HMRC—particularly in preparation for a no-deal scenario, which the Home Secretary described in our Committee as “unthinkable”.

The customs White Paper continues the Government’s worrying trend of relying heavily on secondary legislation and circumventing Parliament. My constituency in Croydon has been on a key trading route between the coast and the City for hundreds of years, and it continues to be so today. It is my job to ensure that businesses and industries in my constituency continue to flourish.

Sweeping new and unscrutinised arrangements for customs duties are a threat to our domestic industries and have the potential to choke up our entire customs system. I want to highlight a few issues identified by the Home Affairs Committee that show us how important it is to get this right and how damaging it will be if we do not. Having the right checks and balances in place before changes are made is a big part of that.

IT systems are a particular concern. Amyas Morse of the National Audit Office has warned that the current system threatens to become “a horror show” because of a lack of flexibility to cope with any new rules after Brexit. The chief executive of HMRC told us that the delivery of the customs declaration service was absolutely vital and that it would be “catastrophic” if the system was not operational on Brexit day. HMRC will need to add another 5,000 staff by March 2019. Its capacity to deliver what is needed has been mentioned, and it remains a significant concern of the Committee.

The Government’s planning to date was completely unconvincing to the Home Affairs Committee. The National Audit Office expressed further concerns about the struggles that the Border Force will face in dealing with the training, workforce, financial and prioritisation adjustments that will result from the multitude of operational changes caused by Brexit in a very short timescale. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Committee, warned that getting things wrong in our ports infrastructure could lead to “Operation Stack on steroids”.

The Committee made the obvious point that the option that would cause the least upheaval would, of course, be the operation of the status quo and that the Government should agree transitional arrangements to that end—that is, remaining in the customs union. The Committee expressed a lack of confidence in the important question of who is in charge of the customs change, and the Committee was not satisfied with the Government’s answers to that question. Progress seems to rely on working groups of Government officials with no meaningful ministerial leadership. The fact that multiple Departments and agencies are involved in delivering customs means that a fully joined-up approach from the Government is urgently needed. We recommended that a Minister of State, at the very least, should be named as the lead Minister responsible for delivery of post-Brexit customs arrangements.

The more unfettered the power held by Ministers and unaccountable agencies, the greater the risk that we get this wrong and leave our current systems simply unable to cope. The House should not accept the Government’s approach of trying to undermine Parliament, doing Brexit on the cheap and perhaps steering us towards a no deal, while sneaking measures through the back door. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said that she had read all the things and that she remained very unclear about how customs might look in the future. I agree with her point.

I was part of the Government Olympic executive as a senior civil servant, and we spent years putting in place the right frameworks and doing very detailed planning for the Olympic and Paralympic games. The House will remember that the one area where we faltered was the recruitment of security staff by G4S, which led to the Army being brought in. We read today that there are already problems with the recruitment of staff to deal with Brexit. It is crucial that Ministers do what they can to ensure that the right framework remains in place or that we continue with the status quo on customs, so that we do not find ourselves in a similar situation.