Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for International Trade (Conor Burns)]

It sounds like my hon. Friend is drawing up a very exciting programme of autumn travel. He is absolutely right that our departure from the European Union will offer huge opportunities for the United Kingdom in the vast and growing Asian market, which I saw at first hand only a couple of weeks ago in Vietnam.

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

T3. The annual number of customs declarations established by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs under a no-deal scenario is estimated to be 270 million. The current number is 55 million. How do the Government expect to process the additional workload when they are shutting down vital HMRC centres such as Lynx House in Portsmouth?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that an incredible amount of work has been going on across Government to make sure that we are fully prepared for all scenarios. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has been holding daily meetings—there have been 60 so far—and we are performing well, particularly on making sure that actions at the borders are in place.