Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Anneliese Dodds and Kirstene Hair

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Q As a follow-on from that point, how feasible would it be to ensure that smaller ports, such as Montrose port in my constituency, have dedicated customs officers? Would there be a detrimental impact for these smaller ports, whether in Scotland or in any other part of the United Kingdom, if customs support was not provided on site?

Richard Ballantyne: It is a concern. You can imagine that a lot of the Government’s attention is on the Dover corridor, and probably rightly so—that is where the main challenge is.

Going back to my opening statements, if we remove ro-ro for one minute, for a lot of bulk shipments—Robert may correct me if I am wrong—where there is one commodity on a shipment, there is a bit more time, and the environment is one where shipping agents are usually helping out, submitting information that then is facilitated to HMRC. We hope that either those agents or inventory linking as part of the Union customs code, which is coming forward, would mean that smaller ports such as Montrose are not disadvantaged.

There are concerns that there could be certain delays at the border—we would not want to see that, but perhaps the sensitivity at a bulk handling port or a port with break bulk is less than at a ro-ro terminal, where lorries basically want to get out as soon as possible. If they are stuck in a terminal, backlogs and queues start and the operational challenges associated with that.

[Anneliese Dodds]

Q My first question relates to the point just made by Kirstene Hair, about the staffing at different ports and the availability of HMRC staff. We have seen quite significant ongoing changes and consolidation of staff into regional and specialist centres. We have heard that the Border Force relies on those HMRC staff on certain occasions. I wonder whether any of your members are raising problems with you that might be arising due to that change in the availability of HMRC staff.

Robert Windsor: My members are very concerned about that. The Dover straits corridor is causing particular concern because it is a 24/7 activity—those lorries are coming in all the time. There have been issues with staffing at those areas. You have to differentiate between Border Force activity, which tends to be frontier, and the work done at the national clearance hub based in Salford. They provide 24/7 cover but, in air and sea, you could basically say that from about 6 o’clock or 7 o’clock in the evening there is a noticeable decline in the workload. If you put ro-ro coming in through Dover with a customs declaration, there will be less of a decline in the work being undertaken there.

It is not just Border Force that we have to consider. A lot of foodstuffs potentially could do with some sort of inspection. Even if there is a risk-based system, a certain proportion of that may still require inspection. Multiple Government agencies at a national level and a local level will face this impact. It will have an impact on my members because you will require more people to work in what is regarded as an out-of-hours situation. That will have a considerable impact on costs.