HMRC Impact Analysis: Customs

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Jesse Norman

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

This is a long document at some 45 pages or so, but I would have hoped that the right hon. Gentleman could have made it to page 9. He claims that the cost to British business will be £15 billion, but it says perfectly clearly at the bottom of page 9:

“The latest…estimate for the annual administrative burden…is £7.5 billion (updated to reflect 2017 data)”.

I am in no sense happy about that—[Interruption.] I am just correcting the record. The right hon. Gentleman said £15 billion, when in fact the figure is £7.5 billion. That figure is, of course, prior to any mitigations that might be put in place by the Government.

Let me turn to the right hon. Gentleman’s other concerns. He criticised the Government for, as he puts it, failing to secure a deal. All his party had to do was support the perfectly sensible series of deals that have been put before this Parliament, and it would have a deal.

I am not going to comment on unsourced speculation of the kind mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. Let me just remind the House that when this Government’s predecessor came into office in 2010, debt was at a peacetime high thanks to the previous Labour Government. The deficit was at almost 10% and, interestingly, inequality under the Labour Government was significantly higher than it is today.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

The number of customs declarations is likely to increase from 50 million now to 250 million when we have to start to export to the EU. This will be governed by a customs declaration service system. Will the system cope, and will there be enough agents to handle that volume of transactions?

[Jesse Norman]

We believe the system will cope. Of course, there are a lot of easements in place, and there is already a functioning CHIEF—customs handling of import and export freight—system to handle the current level of declarations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Jesse Norman

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

1. Which road schemes he plans to allocate funding to as part of the second Road Investment Strategy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

The Department is considering evidence about the strategic road network gathered by Highways England and stakeholders over the past two years, alongside responses to the consultation that took place over the winter. The Department will be announcing the decisions about which new enhancements will be included in the second road investment strategy in 2019.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. On the A417 missing link scheme Swindon to Gloucester, can he confirm that it is the Government’s intention that a preferred route will be announced in the first quarter of next year, followed by the development consent order process, followed hopefully by RIS2 funding, and with an intention to commence in the early 2020s to build this much-needed road where there has been a fatality recently?

[Jesse Norman]

This road is both dangerous and highly congested. Highways England has been carrying out a consultation on improving the missing link near the Air Balloon pub, as my hon. Friend will know, and I have recently met him and colleagues. Once the responses have been analysed there will be further consultation ahead of the preferred route announcement. We certainly hope there will be a PRA early in 2019.