There is an invisible traffic jam of UK exports building, amid increasing business risk-adverseness
Scottish Engineering CEO Paul Sheerin told the Scottish Parliament’s Culture, Tourism, Europe & External Affairs Committee a survey of the members of the association revealed that
“all those who export goods are suffering” as a result of Brexit. He said: “These problems are myriad, predominantly involving availability of logistics capacity and increased costs. But what worries them more than this is the impact on their relationships with customers.
“Delays in getting parts in, mean delays in getting goods to customers, and when parts come in late, they lack the capacity to build fast enough and address the backlog.”
Scottish engineering firms, Mr Sheerin told the MSPs, were growing increasingly anxious about the
length of time customers would tolerate Brexit-related supply chain disruption before opting to find alternative markets. One company, he said, had paid £1.75m in dedicated air freight costs in an attempt to keep its supply chains moving and maintain its commitments to customers.
This same company previously sent home over 200 members of staff because it didn’t have enough components to build with; many are asking how long issues like this will be allowed to go on before clients abandon them for non-UK manufacturers,” Mr Sheerin added. “We’ve also been
warned by colleagues in Northern Ireland to watch out for when the next phase of customs requirements is implemented.” Mr Sheerin’s comments come in the same week that Whitehall claimed the UK had avoided the “worst case scenario” of post-Brexit supply chain breakdown
and significant queues to the port of Dover.
A Cabinet spokesperson told The Loadstar the latest data government had shown freight flows between the UK and EU were “back to normal”.However, the Road Haulage Association (RHA) challenged this, telling The Loadstar a lack queues
“should not be confused as a barometer or success”, as checks were happening elsewhere. A spokesperson for Logistics UK acknowledged that traffic flows *appeared* “comparable” with 2020, but noted that flows through Channel ports were “traditionally low” at start of the year
not taking into account far more empty loads and that they “are still some way off” expected volumes for later in the year.“In addition, most controls on inbound freight aren’t in place yet,” the spokesperson told The Loadstar.
“Businesses have worked hard so far to adopt
new trading processes for exports, in real time, and are now working with customers and partners in Europe to adopt the necessary processes to ease potential delays for inbound freight from April onwards. “SPS certification will be required virtually on all food & animal imports
and, from July, all import requirements will be on, when flow levels are higher than they are now.”
Mr Sheerin said shipments were waiting at the “back doors” of factories, whether because they were being risk-averse in sending goods out or as a result of paperwork delays.
He added: “That’s why there are no queues at ports; it’s happening and it’s bad, it’s just not visible.
FULL REPORT
theloadstar.com/brexit-has-bui…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Michael M. 🇨🇭🇳🇴🇮🇸🇱🇮🇬🇧

Michael M. 🇨🇭🇳🇴🇮🇸🇱🇮🇬🇧 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @vivamjm

18 Feb
From a friend

"People don't understand the ruinous nature of nationalism and yet we had 75 million die for it only 80 years ago. People have no concept of or care for history, nor do the vast majority care about "the other" - their fellow man
As I've said a few times, only until the ramifications of Brexit have truly harmful consequences - meaning uncontestable unemployment figures or economic contractions and deep recession that can't be attributable to the pandemic, we are deeply in the shit with this.
Just like with Trump, the Tories have resuscitated themselves off the back of a leader most of them probably can't abide - & yet he engages with the (nationalist) proletariat and grants them (perceived) landslides of power. I'm guessing many within Labour felt similarly about TB.
Read 7 tweets
17 Feb
@MaelorForest Again so little understanding . It's tiresome. Mike Harvey, director at Maelor Forest Nurseries on the Brexit Irish Protocol “It’s typical that the EU puts these restrictions in place and applies them rigorously in Northern Ireland but we leave the borders open
to trees coming in from the EU including Ireland and the Netherlands" YES BECAUSE EU HAS *LEGALLY* TAKEN CONTROL OF ITS BORDERS, UNLIKE UK THAT WAS/IS NOT READY TO..
AND WTO *ILLEGALLY* WON'T BE, FOR SPS MEASURES THROUGH (PLANNED) 1/4 UNTIL 1/7. THAT IS NOT THE FAULT OF THE EU
And Belfast city council,“We thought it would be teething problems that would be resolved quickly. It just seems ludicrous really,” said Fulton. “The irony is that I can now get a tree easier from Latvia than I can from Britain,
Read 4 tweets
17 Feb
From a friend
"So incredibly sending a single consumer good of relatively low value (under £200) - UPS is now requesting POWER OF ATTORNEY from the RECIPIENT (as though the average private ebay/amazon buyer has a frikking clue what that is..) to enable UPS to deliver the package
So UPS calls the customer the customer is working or busy.. And you can guess what happens. More fucking delays. I had to call UPS myself to find this nugget of information out..
So now I am frantically communicating in foreign languages
trying to get my customer to call UPS themselves to give "power of attorney." as UPS wants
You can imagine how happy this makes the average customer..
Read 4 tweets
14 Feb
From a friend in brief..
"Parcelforce / GLS shipments to EU (Amazon mandate) are simply not leaving the UK. Apparently they're all being "held in containers." I'd understand a delay. But these are total stops. This stuff isn't moving. There is no cycle.
For other packages I've used UPS (who have mostly been faultless in all the time I've used them). Stuff is getting into Europe mostly (some stuff gets stuck in the UK for a bit). But then the packages just sit in warehouses literally a handful of miles away from destination.
One package has been a month. One EXPRESS package just scans every day from a warehouse. What the absolute fuck is happening here. These seem like vastly different issues, both in UK AND in EU. UPS was getting stuff delivered in January and now it's like they've just given up?
Read 16 tweets
13 Feb
H/T @PatHarrison2
A decent report from the NY Times...
"As the new year made Brexit a reality, Tony Hale encountered the pitfalls of Europe’s redrawn geography. Specifically, he confronted the need to extricate 53 tons of rotting pork products from administrative purgatory
a port in the Netherlands.
For more than two decades, Mr. Hale’s company had shipped pork to the European Union without customs checks, as if the United Kingdom and the continent across the water were one vast country.

With Britain now legally outside the bloc,
exporters suddenly had to navigate inspections, safety regulations & a bewildering crush of paperwork.
For Mr. Hale, incorrectly prepared documents meant sending five containers full of pork to an unplanned final destination : the incinerator.
“It’s a new game,& we have to learn”
Read 28 tweets
12 Feb
Is there UK law that dictates reports must include a statement from Gov..& that this statement must conclude reports?
If not why are they included? As here:

"A spokesperson said: "We were always clear that there would be changes

NOPE .& def NOT guaranteed *ADVERSE* "changes"
once the UK left the EU's customs union and single market, and we engaged extensively with traders and industry to help them prepare.

ARE THEY FECKING KIDDING?
"We have agreed a high-quality free trade agreement, based on zero tariffs and zero quotas,

WHICH IS LAUGHABLY THE SAME AS UK ALREADY HAD... BUT AS JUST THE BARE BONES OF EU MEMBERSHIP
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!