HMRC Estate Transformation Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

HMRC Estate Transformation

Jim Cunningham Excerpts
Tuesday 29th January 2019

(5 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mel Stride Portrait Mel Stride
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On the IT systems element of my hon. Friend’s question, he is absolutely right. CHIEF has been upgraded, and it is now capable of processing about 90 messages per second, which will be enough to handle the import and export declarations that may be required.

On the issue of informing the marketplace or traders about the new circumstances that may pertain after 29 March, we have written to 145,000 exporters that export only to the European Union and are not therefore familiar with customs arrangements. We have issued three iterations of our partnership pack and there is a huge amount of information on gov.uk, where businesses can also sign up to email alerts to make sure that they are aware of the very latest relevant information.

Jim Cunningham Portrait Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
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On behalf of myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Eleanor Smith), I have written to the Minister to ask for a meeting, with one or two reps from the trade unions, to discuss the situation in Wolverhampton and Coventry. People in Coventry will have to travel 16 miles to premises that are inadequate, while those who are left are not guaranteed jobs. I will not rehearse all the arguments now, but I would like to meet the Minister, with some reps and my hon. Friend, to discuss this further. Will he agree to do so?

Mel Stride Portrait Mel Stride
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I would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the matters he has raised.