Thread by @pmdfoster

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There are 35 days to go until new #brexit border comes into force ...and the Dept of Transport hasn’t even got a “hauliers handbook” ready. My latest via @FT This one a real head scratcher. 1/thread
on.ft.com/36nSx6g

@FT It's pretty remarkable story, but as we know 10,000 trucks a day go over 'short strait' and 80 per cent of them are foreign - and as of Jan 1 that free-flowing system is going to be fetterd by full customs control, with huge new burdens for drivers. So a handbook be handy! /2

@FT This is doubly true of THIS government since it elected not to seek a waiver on safety and security declarations - it's choice - but that's burden that falls on the hauliers particularly. That's been knowns since January. Enough time to write the book, you'd think.../3

@FT But in November they came up with a document that @Eliz_de_Jong of Logistics UK @LogisticsUKNews told the EU exit select cmme today was "not fit for purpose"...and I've seen a copy. It's a work of bureaucratic art.../4

parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/af…

@FT @Eliz_de_Jong @LogisticsUKNews For EG: “If the trader arranges for the goods to move under the CTC the driver must be given . . . a TAD from the trader, and be told by the trader that the movement has been released to the transit procedure and that they can proceed to the place of exit from EU member state.”/5

@FT @Eliz_de_Jong @LogisticsUKNews I mean, leave aside - as @Eliz_de_Jong told MPs that it doesn't answer the basic question “what documentation and checks do I need for my journey?”...this thing needs translating into English before it gets to Spanish/French and Polish /6

@FT @Eliz_de_Jong @LogisticsUKNews The government has started rolling out information sites and says it is working "at pace" to deliver the new guide by the time they open - but at present I'm told those sites are still waiting for a URL that truckers can download to their phones. /7

@FT @Eliz_de_Jong @LogisticsUKNews According to Logistics UK a new draft is due on November 18 and the final version is not expected to be delivered until December 7 — less than four weeks before the end of the transition period. I guess just keep playing that sappy Check Change Go advert /8

@FT @Eliz_de_Jong @LogisticsUKNews Sorry for being sarcy but this one really does boggle the mind...

@Eliz_de_Jong said: “It is later than we’d want it to be and [government] officials working on it know that it is later than they would have wanted it to be.”

We Brits still world beating at understatement. /9

@FT @Eliz_de_Jong @LogisticsUKNews The really crazy part is that the Govt didn't have to reinvent the wheel here...there was a perfectly good template from previous no deal sagas /10

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

@FT @Eliz_de_Jong @LogisticsUKNews Richard Burnett @RHARichardB says its symptomatic of Gov overload:

“It’s like there is a fog in every govt. department. There are so many questions being asked, that nobody can keep on top of all these things that are being raised.”

Thank God we didn't extend transition. ENDS