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Sky News obtains Border Force contingency presentation slide assuming a No Deal Brexit fall in cross Channel freight traffic of 75% to 87% for next 3-6 months as a “reasonable worst case”
Sky News obtains Border Force contingency presentation slide assuming a No Deal Brexit fall in cross Channel freight traffic of 75% to 87% for next 3-6 months as a “reasonable worst case”
2/ these figures in a secret document dating from late November, were not in the official No Deal public guidance, but are believed to have been discussed in Cabinet last month...
3/ “The French will apply at least the legal minimum of third country customs controls on all goods and sanitay and phytosanitary (SPS) checks on specified food and agricultural products. This includes the imposition of 100% customs documents checks”.
4/ Even after an initial shock, Border Force slide assumes that a “new normal” for cross Channel freight will be 50-100% of current flows lasting “until significant changes are made to improve border arrangements such as automation”.
5/ Agrifood exports (up to 15% goods trade) would all have to be rerouted from Calais and Tunnel to ports with an existing Border Inspection Post, such as Zeebrugge/Rotterdam but that “it is unclear whether they will have sufficient capacity , causing delay at these locations”.
6/ The document acknowledges that a “significant proportion of traders will not be ready for D1ND (Day One No Deal)”.
7/ this seems like an extraordinarily high number - cataclysmic - and some involved suggest that the numbers have been revised since late November/early December and were contested in the industry... but if even fractionally true - the Brexit flotilla would not scratch surface
8/ it is the case that in France at Coquelles the Channel Tunnel are now building a facility at a petrol station for risk-based controls and checks for customs and animal plant health for 100 lorries at a time to be ready by 29th March
9/ insiders suggest to me that these numbers have been updated since - but in any event they are what was being discussed in Government internally while Parliament was debating the meaningful vote for the first time.
