Small Business: EU Exports

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Lord Bowness

Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I understand the point the noble Lord makes. I know that we managed to secure a much better deal for UK hauliers. They can continue to operate through and within the EU throughout the end of the transition period. As we know, that is important to allow the flow of goods, food and medicine into the country and to ensure that we can export our goods in a cost-efficient way to the EU and beyond. On his specific question about goods coming into the UK, I had better take that back to the department and write to him with further details of what we might be able to do to help.

[Lord Bowness (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, while it may be less than one month since the transition period ended, for small businesses the situation is urgent and cannot be allowed to continue for many months. Does the Minister agree that the processes and paperwork from 1 January have turned out to be far more onerous than businesses were led to believe, and much more than the publicity in newspapers, online and on television suggested? That publicity told people to prepare for 1 January when they did not know for what they were actually preparing. I consider the matter urgent and some help is urgently required.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. The Government’s campaign to inform businesses and citizens of the need to change started in July. We published the first draft of the border operating model in July 2020. The campaign encourages businesses to visit GOV.UK/transition and to use the checker tool to tailor the guidance for their individual circumstances. Customs declarations would still have been necessary even if we had had no deal. While I am very sympathetic about the additional administration burden for small businesses, we are doing all we can to help them catch up with what is required.