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B R E A K I N G: From Civil Service source
1a. Philip Hammond as Chancellor imposed a recruitment freeze on HMRC in November 2017, making it impossible to recruit new staff for an independent customs regime. This ban was in place for a number of months.
1a. Philip Hammond as Chancellor imposed a recruitment freeze on HMRC in November 2017, making it impossible to recruit new staff for an independent customs regime. This ban was in place for a number of months.
1b. ...Of course it increased pressure on existing staff, who had to deliver their normal workload as well as designing and preparing for new Brexit systems. Had he been serious about preparing for Brexit he would have been hiring external expertise.
2a. In the early spring of 2018, Hammond ordered work to stop on a new software system to be used as part of customs facilitations on the Irish border. I only know this because a colleague who was involved with it told me he had been having an awful day dealing with the fallout..
2b. ...as the project team working on it, not to mention colleagues in Northern Ireland, were very unhappy with the decision. The reason given, if I remember, was that there was going to be no border so therefore the system wasn’t needed.
2c. ...One can only conclude that Hammond had decided then to go for a full customs union with the EU, although that news didn’t trickle out until September 2018
3. Hammond was quite happy with a Withdrawal Agreement that enables the EU to impose VAT on derivatives and a FTT. Hammond kept the derivatives investigation quiet too.
4. And in general terms, we were not allowed to consult business on the new systems for Brexit. There was some consultation in the early stages but latterly our work was shrouded in secrecy so business didn’t know what to prepare for on 29 March 2019.
