Michael Gove has endorsed claims that up to 50,000 people will have to be recruited to carry out customs paperwork under the government’s preferred Canada-style trade deal with the EU — the equivalent of the population of a medium-sized town.
The Cabinet Office minister was on Thursday pressed by businesses that send goods across borders to provide more cash to help them recruit and train the army of form-fillers needed to process the red tape spawned when Britain exits the transition period on January 1 2021.
Mr Gove was challenged by Labour MP Justin Madders to confirm that 50,000 people would be required to handle the customs declarations needed for trade with the EU and whether it was feasible to recruit them in such a short space of time.
“Yes it is and the government stand behind that,” Mr Gove said. The minister’s allies said that although the 50,000 figure was an industry estimate, it was “not far off” the workforce likely to be needed to fill in customs forms.
That admission means that private-sector customs agents — staff trained to fill in customs forms and clear them with the authorities — will become one of the big growth sectors in the British employment market in the next year.
By the time Britain exits the transition period, the private sector may have hired four times more people to fill in customs forms than the 12,000 people working as fishermen in the UK — the industry that is supposedly one of the big beneficiaries of Brexit.
Customs agents fill in declarations which are then registered with HM Revenue & Customs. A form is then returned to the exporter electronically and given to the truck driver. Checks are then carried out at ports to make sure the paperwork is correct.
“We are leaving the single market and the customs union,” a government official said. “Businesses that trade with the EU need to get ready for new customs procedures now.”
The Road Haulage Association has estimated that a Canada-style trade deal — which would eliminate most tariffs but would still involve customs declarations — could lead to an extra 200m declarations a year.
Currently there are around 50m customs declarations a year for UK trade with the rest of the world; EU trade is largely frictionless because of Britain’s membership of the customs union.
The RHA says that a customs agent fully trained and experienced in dealing with HMRC procedures can typically deal with about 20 customs clearances a day, suggesting a total of 50,000 new staff would be needed.
Some exporters employ staff “in house” to carry out the extra paperwork, while others outsource the work to external private-sector customs agents. If each new staff member earned £30,000, that would amount to an extra cost to traders of £1.5bn.
Richard Burnett, chief executive of the RHA, said traders were still waiting to hear from ministers exactly what processes they needed to prepare for on January 1 and they also needed financial assistance to help recruit staff.
He pointed out that exporters would have to start recruiting staff well ahead of New Year’s Day, incurring an upfront hit while the customs agents sat twiddling their thumbs. “We will need financial support,” he said.
Mr Gove has created a £26m fund to help train new customs agents — some £7.5m is currently unspent — but it is understood he is considering requests from the Border Delivery Group, which represents traders, for further financial support.
Meanwhile new Brexit border requirements could also lead to a shortage of vets, given that all businesses that export products containing animal material — even goods with only small amounts, such as part of a ready meal — will need them at their factory or firm to sign off on the health of the foods. This can cost from £200-£900 as the vet is paid by their time, according to the CBI.
Dominic Goudie, head of international trade at the Food and Drink Federation, said “we don’t know how many vets the government has recruited, where they are located, or how many will ultimately be needed”. Businesses worry that vets will not be available in some places where they are needed, such as factories in more remote areas.
He added: “A simple look at the port of Dover shows there is physically no space for infrastructure to be built. Checks there would cause bottlenecks and chaos for ‘just in time’ food and drink.”
Source: Economy - ft.com
