Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of expanding digital customs clearance systems on levels of administration undertaken by UK traders.

HMRC uses the Customs Declaration Service (CDS) to manage the clearance of goods. This digital service successfully handles millions of customs declarations every month.

No specific assessment of the potential impact of expanding digital customs clearance systems on levels of administration undertaken by UK traders has been undertaken. Estimates of the administrative burden of import and export declarations for trade between Great Britain and the European Union are published at the following link: Estimating the customs administrative burden of 2022 declarations - GOV.UK.

HMRC is committed to making customs processes as simple as possible while ensuring effective checks are in place at the border, and we continue to work closely with the border industry to streamline processes and support the flow of legitimate goods.

The Government recognises the benefits from trade digitalisation for business and management of the goods border. The UK was the first G7 country to put electronic trade documents on the same legal footing as paper documents. The Trade Strategy sets out plans to make sure government and traders alike harness digitalisation to speed up and simplify process. As part of this HMRC is working with industry partners to test how commercial data drawn directly from electronic paperwork can be read and processed by HMRC to meet customs requirements.