🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺🚢🚚🤷♂️🤷♂️🚨NEW: nearly 2/3 customs agents say they don’t have enough staff to handle coming border, per survey of @BIFA members...my latest via @FT and why companies are struggling to prepare. 1/thread on.ft.com/2ZB9yqJ
@BIFA@FT I'm not going to rehears entire border issues again (see threads passim) but a couple of key takeaways
@BIFA@FT So as Robert Keen @BIFA_DG tells me, in a survey back in May "only" 50% of members said they'd be short of staff - now its 64% - which tallies with members raising concerns on Covid-19 /3
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG Because while it is true that Govt has put £50m into increasing numbers/training the reality is that many freight forwarding companies (whose staff will facilitate new border processes) have been furloughing staff dealing with Covid cashflow crunch...not rushing to take on risk/4
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG This is why Richard Burnett @RHARichardB and others have been banging on about government need to intervene more actively in a commercial marketplace that Whitehall (and politicians) are failing to understand the dynamics of (see 4, above) /5
But it's not just about the 50,000 customs clearance experts that don't yet exist...the chronic lack of info. For EG.../6
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska As @AnnaJerzewska tells me, the government has said that business will be eligible for simplified eligibility requirements for CCG Comprehensive Customs Guarantee (duty deferral) and Entry in Declarant's Records (EIDR) status (for checks at warehouse)...BUT no guidance, as yet /7
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska The result is that business is getting conflicting advice, says @AnnaJerzewska on whether they should hold out for simplified regime, or protect themselves by getting full registrations. The result is stasis/confusion etc. /8
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska FWIW I did ask the Cabinet Office (which runs the Border Delivery Group) for guidance on WHEN these details will be shared with relevant businesses. Back came the reply: "in due course".
Yes, that is the sound of hair follicles being torn from scalps /9
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska This is the problem - it's not just about customs agents or form filling - but about all the actors - hauliers, brokers, relevant government departments, port authorities and traders - working in concert with each other. Which brings us to IT..../10
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska The government has a new Goods Vehicle Management System (GVMS) and the Smart Freight Service app in order for hauliers to check they're good to go and not turn Kent into a lorry park....but it's still not available for users to train on. In fact..../11
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska According to @lisaocarroll scoop this AM on slides shared with Cab Cmme responsible for all this, "beta testing" on Smart Freight won't start "until the end of November". Wow. Let's hope its not integral to the system in any way. /12
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska@lisaocarroll@RobHardyFR8 So what is going on? Why is the government so apparently cavalier about industry warnings/frustrations...and the risks of 'no deal', which they just made much higher by putting a gun to EU heads over the Irish Protocol? /14
One is that that Frost and co have actually given up on getting a zero tariff/zero quota deal on terms they find acceptable... hence move to re-write NI Protocol /15
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska@lisaocarroll@RobHardyFR8 There is a brute logic to this, since the Protocol as negotiated is incompatible with an ultra-sovereigntist view of Brexit which is the logic for refusing to agree sufficient State Aid/LPF elements to get the zero/zero deal you need to make NI Protocol work /16
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska@lisaocarroll@RobHardyFR8 If that's right - and who knows, but it logical inference of the way that UK Internal Market bill is drafted (see Section 45 totally disapplying the Protocol) - and you know the border is going to be a mess, there is political logic in having "EU intransigence" to blame /17
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska@lisaocarroll@RobHardyFR8 No matter that Article 16 of the Protocol and the Arbitration mechanism in the Withdrawal Agreement gives you plenty of ways to address your concerns...no-one will say it right out, but on one reading, this is now just blame game management /18
Or perhaps both - i.e. an acceptance UK can live with either outcome? /19
@BIFA@FT@BIFA_DG@RHARichardB@AnnaJerzewska@lisaocarroll@RobHardyFR8 But with friction coming to the border deal or 'no deal' (it'll be worse in a 'no deal' but no-one can say for sure how much worse, so easy to put those fears aside) it seems clear that "chaos in Kent" will not be much of a determining factor. Seat belts please. ENDS
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NEW: Brussels issues UK list of “good faith” tests to fully implement EU-UK #Brexit divorce deal if it wants deeper relationship — not a bust up, but a clear reminder this won’t be easy. My and my esteemed Brussels colleague @AndyBounds via @ft /1
The gripes are about fully implementing Windsor Framework — the deal that removed appearance of Irish Sea border — but still needs vet checks, parcel data, pet microchip checks, accurate certification of agrifoods. Which EU says isn’t fully happening. /2
Also some concerns still about treatment of EU citizens under the post Brexit settled
status scheme.
The UK Government says it’s fully committed to getting all this fixed. What’s interstate is EU Commission to make the point it needs doing — at first meeting. /3
A quick (I promise) thread on @RachelReevesMP promises to boost EU-UK trade by aligning on regs (eg chemicals), doing a veterinary deal (no SPS checks) and boosting services via 'mutual recognition of professional qualifications' - taking each in order /1
First alignment. Two points: 1. via @joelreland of @UKandEU 'alignment doesn't get you access'.
See his new report here, setting out why technical agreements to improve EU-UK trade will have 'minimal' impact on economy /2
@joelreland @UKandEU 2. Not ALL industry want full-fat unilateral alignment. Even the food industry, you hear different voices (what about x, y, z pesticide use to grow barley/beets etc) OR in chemicals, see Chemical Industries Association @See_Chem_Bus to me here🚨🚨/3
NEW: Gove’s top-down plan to build 150,000 houses in Cambridge by 2040 declared “nonsensical” by local council leaders because they don’t have water supply to build existing plan for 50,000 by that date! 🤯 But Gove keeps giving interviews promising it/1
“The 150,000 homes would appear to just be nonsensical, if I’m honest, because the infrastructure just isn’t there,” Mike Davey, @mikelode1 Labour leader of Cambridge City Council /2
@mikelode1 “We are a pro-growth council, but we’ve run out of water. So that leaves us with a lot of questions about how this can be delivered. Gove has to solve the water problem and the energy problem or it can’t be done,” Bridget Smith, LD leader of South Cambridgeshire @cllrbridget /3
First the gaslighting: his deal is a ‘reverse’ trade deal…it erects barriers, it doesn’t remove them. It’s only “broadest deal ever” if UK started from zero relations, rather than working down from Single Market membership. As he well knows, but I wonder about the readers.😬 /2
Second the one bit of truth. To get closer to EU and fix bits of his rubbish deal, the UK will become a big rule taker. That will be hard. What Frost omits to say is that’s a pure function of the hideous position his #Brexit deal has put the UK in. And no seat at the table. /3
🚨🚨when ministers aren’t bashing UK universities they love to boast about them. Rightly. But unless something changes on funding there will be a lot less to boast about in 10 years time. /1
As Simon Marginson Higher Education prof at Oxford University explains the UK is in danger of getting back to the funding crisis levels that sparked need for tuition fees…/2
These charts by @amy_borrett explain the basic problem. Triple whammy of inflation, #Brexit and risky over reliance on international students to x-subsidise undergrad teaching (previously used to make up research grant shortfalls). /3
What he's getting at is that #Brexit is not, as is still widely supposed, a one-off event that companies adjust to.
It's a permanent friction that makes UK companies a risker bet for your supply chain than an EU company. And that matters for maufacturing/2
That's because 50 per cent of UK exports are from manufacturing, and of those that go to EU, around 50 per cent feed into EU supply chains -- so they make bits of things that criss-cross Europe to become whole things that then get exported to rest of world. /3